


Feeling safe, but mostly not

by GravityWaver



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Kid Skye | Daisy Johnson, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2018-05-24 20:59:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6166684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GravityWaver/pseuds/GravityWaver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye is 12 and running from an organization that has aligned itself with Hydra. She doesn't know why they are after her, but she knows that if she ever is found by any goverment they will find here too,  agian. So she decides to use the Anvegers to keep her save. Even if they don't know who she is, or that they are keeping her safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. On the run

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic was inspired by multiple fanfics about Kid Skye. Hope I add a new twist to that.
> 
> After the helpfull comments of 'thesheepofdestiny' I decided to rewrite it form the beginning.
> 
> I do not own Skye or any of the Avengers, nor any other Marvel charakters.

_Skye, present_

Skye started to type, she was sitting in a corner of an empty apartment. Most buildings in this area should have been renovated years ago, or at least they should have been properly demolished. The only rooms that could be described as stable were the ones in the first level where some people had opened stores or cafe`s. It was not a good part of town. _At least I'm free, and I've got you_ Skye thought, looking at Loud, her cat, who was sitting next to her, purring and rubbing against her legs. She had picked up the stray a few month back. Since then the cat had rarely left her side. She had even tried to defend Skye from time to time. Loud let another purr escape. _You may not look like it, but you can be feisty._ Skye stopped stroking her and continued typing. The laptop, which she had stolen, was sitting on her lap, connected to the Wi-Fi from the Bar underneath. She had the console open and was starting to upload the hack she had written for the last five month through multiple Thor servers onto a Hydra server, from there it would start attacking Stark Industries. The program she had written should get her past Stark Industries firewall. Thirty minutes later the upload was complete. She had no illusion, she was twelve years old, Tony Stark was a lot smarter, but building a firewall was harder then hacking it. A hundred people could think up a security program, but normally it only was secure for most people because the holes were fixed as soon as someone had managed to find and use them. Tony Starks system had withstood most people's attack so far, but she had found the hole, the point where the structure was incomplete, it had taken her almost five month, she had looked at the system whenever she was awake, monitored all attacks happening onto  the firewall and analyzed the pattern and how Jarvis defended them. Now she started her own hack. She knew she couldn't slip by unnoticed, so she played on his ego. She hoped that he would see her attack as a simple hack for information gathering and system disrupting, the code she had written for that was quite crude. He would probably think that it was sheer luck that she had managed to get past his defenses. The code was too basic in most places to have come from anyone other than an amateur. But information gathering was not what she had actually planned. She entered the final command. She hoped that it would work. She had put all her effort into this hack, while staying hidden from _Them_. She closed the terminal and opened up some other programs that would erase the footage of all security cameras around her area. _I hope this works_ Skye started patting Loud again. _I've only got enough left to last about six month_ she put down her laptop and locked into her bag. The container with the six phials was still there, a total of 600 ml . A shot of about 3 ml each day _They_ had said. She took a look at the program with which she had hacked _their_ phones. There were two dots coming closer. _It was a good place while it lasted. I just really hope this works_. She was too tired from running and hiding to continue this much longer. She started packing everything up and left.

* * *

_Avengers Tower_

Tony and Steve were in the lounge, Tony was trying to making something that was supposed to resemble a pancake but had somehow turned into what was best described as a gelid fluid that in some places had turned black and hard. Steve was checking the weather on one of the monitors that were build into the walls everywhere. He was  flipping through the pages when suddenly a popup blocked his view.

"Hey Tony. What is this alert here?" Steve asked.

"What alert?  What did you do this time, hope you didn't freeze the system." Toy answered. He attempted to throw the results of his last try at cooking into the trash bin.

"This one, It says 'System error, audio blocked, foreign programs detected'."  Steve answered. Tony stopped immediately. His reaction altering the path of the 'food' which landed on Steve's shorts.

"Shit Steve, did you download anything?"

"No, I didn't! And what was that for?" Steve said with a disgusted look on his face, viewing the results of Toni's cooking on his trousers.

"Jarvis, start code go offline password PotsPepper" Tony answered, ignoring Steve, who had already left to clean up Toni's mess.  
Tony was worried, nobody had jet managed to hack his system, but he hadn't had as much time to check the Systems as he would have liked, it had withstood millions of different attacks. But it seemed that he hadn't updated the security as often as he should have had. He stated to look through the files and the damage the hacker was doing to the system. He had isolated the code that was looking through the files and had started to clean up the system when Natasha came bursting in, looking ready to kill someone.

"What the heck is going on Tony, why can't I access the Internet, and what is this new program in the system. Did one of your little projects got out of control?" She asked when she came into the room. She had been discussing a mission with Furry when suddenly the Internet had stopped in the middle of a sentence. They had been discussing important information, and she _hated_ to be interrupted.  
"That wasn't me, for once. Someone managed to hack the system. But he couldn't get any information out. I shut down the Internet connection as soon as the alert appeared. I've got the system almost cleaned up. Just give me a bit more time."

"Shit. So it wasn't you" Natasha said. "I'm going to try to track down the source of the attack while you fix the system. Do you know anyone who could pull this off?" she asked and breathed in loudly. "And I told you to stop trying to cook. It's going to take ages for it to smell normal again in here."

"Hey it wasn't that bad this time.  And no, except from me I don't know anyone who could pull this off."

"Ok. But Tony, seriously I'm begging you stop trying to cook.  What I saw walking out of the room on Steve's pants wouldn't even have been eaten by a starving kid" Natasha answered. She opened up all the windows in the room  and left to get Clint.

 

"Hey, where are you going. You're not going to be beating up some guys without me?" Steve asked when he came across Natasha.

"I'm going to try to follow the hack back to its source. But this was just a hack. Whoever did this probably is good at computers but not at anything else. But thanks for coming, I was already getting Clint, but you could get the others now. It would give me a bit time to get a feel for how this hacker works."  When they reached Natasha's room Steve left to get Clint and Bruce. Natasha sat down and opened her laptop and connected it to the Internet, it was riskier without Starks firewall, but the one shield provided was good enough. She finished her talk with Furry and started to follow the trace the hacker had left back through the net. _Whoever is doing this is good_ she thought. She had followed the traces back through multiple servers, but the program had split itself up into multiple parts and reassemble itself on different points, sometimes crossing its own path. With the different file sizes it was harder to track it, but she managed to follow it to a local bar. When she checked for video footage she noticed that around that area everything containing footage had been wiped clean. All data form about two hours before the hack started had been deleted. Meanwhile Steve had gotten Clint. Bruce had declined, he had been working on something time sensitive. "The Hack seems to  have come from this Bar downtown. Whoever hacked us was smart enough to delete all the video footage around that place. It's not too far from her. And the footage is still being deleted, so I guess that whoever we are looking for is still there." Natasha told them when they came in.

"Ok Natasha, try to keep them busy. Maybe we can still catch them." Steve answered.

 The three made their way to the parking lot. Clint and Natasha took a car and Steve got on his bike. Natasha took out her laptop as soon as she was sitting and tried  to get the camera footage. She wasn't getting far. As soon as she tried to download or reroute the footage the servers she used where pinged, hacked or something else and crashed. She continued hacking, hoping that Tony would help them soon. Ten minutes later they were driving closer to the source of the hack. The hacker had stopped doing anything new five minutes ago. And Natasha was now deleting most of the programs that stopped her from accessing the footage. She finished just as they were stopping in front of a restaurant, but the footage she got now showed nothing out of the ordinary. When they left the care people started to stare at them, some were even coming to them asking for autographs, but they backed off as soon as they saw Natasha's look _why can't they just let us do our work. I hate having to worry about bystanders_. The three walked into the bar and took a look. Steve blocked the door while Clint pulled out an immobilizer arrow and Natasha unpacked her computer.

 "Nobody leaves this room." Steve said. "Someone tried to hack us from this restaurant not ten minutes ago. Has anyone left since then or behaved odd?"

 From what they could make out by the amount of answers they got at the same time nobody had left the Restaurant for five minutes and everybody had behaved suspiciously to someone else. Two minutes later Natasha was still trying to hack into every device that was in the room, but the firewall of the restaurant was abnormally high. _Why the fuck has this place got such a good firewall? Why can't it be like a standard Bar or restaurant with a firewall that you can crack from a 10 year old phone?_ She was getting really annoyed now. "Steve get the manager. This restaurant has security comparable to the standard Shield level four encryptions." she said "But it seems to have been programmed by the person we are looking for". she had just finished the sentence when suddenly a big bearded guy came out of the back rooms with a shotgun in his hand. "What are you trying to do. I won't let myself get robed again. leave now. I'd hate to have to clean up the mess..." he screamed while coming through the back door and stopped abruptly when he saw who he was pointing the gun at. His jaw fell wide open. "I'm , I'mmm. I'm sorry, ddid didn't know it was you sir" he stuttered. "What is going on here, wwhat brings you heere?" he was too nervous to stand and had to sit down on a bar chair.

"You could tell us how you got your security system, and don't bother lying. I'll know." Natasha said, locking at him intensely enough to make him shrink even more and cutting right to the chase.  She hated explaining all of their actions.

"Hey Nat let him life, he probably hasn't done anything anyway" Clint interrupted her looking at the barkeeper worriedly, who breathed in, a bit relieved.

"I wasn't hurting him, I was just asking him nicely." She answered and turned back to face the barkeeper "That was me asking nicely. Now, what does someone like you need an encryption like the one you have on your Wi-Fi? And who did you got it from?"

Ten minutes later after Clint had calmed the barkeeper down enough so that he could talk, while Steve had prevented Tony on getting wasted o the alcohol and Natasha watched the street, so the guy wouldn't be too intimidated by her, He told them how he got his firewall.

A week ago someone had hacked his Wi-Fi and threatened to expose important information's from the people currently in his room, if he wouldn't meet his demands. The people would probably sue him, and that could have cost him his business. The demands had been quite weird. All the food that he would normally throw into the trash bin, but was still eatable, would be given out the back to the homeless people. If he did that he had said that he would delete all the information he had gathered and even upgrade his security system, if he wanted to. He had been giving the eatable leftovers to homeless people since then, but had declined the upgrade of his security system. How could he have been sure that what he did was actually upgrading is system. He had told him that there was a known IT-guy in his bar. He had recognized him and had convinced him to watch as his blackmailer upgraded his system. The computer scientist had recognized the structure of the program and had been astonished by how good it was. It had rarely seen a better firewall.

"You've got to be kidding me" Natasha said when she heard the story. "He's got to be lying. And that shit about giving food to homeless people? He hacked Stark. It doesn't make sense!"

"It rarely doesn't. But the hacker was here a few minutes ago, could it have been one of the persons in there?" Steve asked.

"I checked all of their cell phones and computers, no one in there is the hacker, but the IP-address locked of just five minutes ago, and nobody has left the room during that time." Natasha replied they were starting to leave. Tony would have a look at the firewall later. They were about to leave when Clint stopped and turned around.

"The Barkeeper said that they are giving the food to the homeless people at the back. Maybe the Hacker was there." All three of them started walking, back through the cafe and out the back door.

* * *

_Skye_

She was hungry, she considered to eat in the open but decided against it when she  saw a restaurant next to a small alley. They were probably dumping their waste there, which meant free food. She started walking. Loud had gone to chase mice, probably. She looked at a watch in one of the shopping windows. _They_ hadn't been close the last time she had looked at her program. She still had enough time. She found a few slices of leftover pizza and some fruits that were probably 'too ripe' to be used in the restaurant. She ate for a few more minutes, placed her pocket mirror against a wall and started cutting her hair. She continued her walk towards the Avengers Tower. Loud had found her way back to her and was now running around her in circles. She was about to cross another street when she saw the van. It was grey, a grey she had seen often enough. Two men were entering the car. She was frozen and stopped abruptly.  She was scared. It couldn't be _them_. She couldn't let _them_ get her now.  Not when she was so close to being safe. Never again would she go with them. She turned around and started to walk, keeping her breath under controll. She knew that they had spotted her when she heard the all too familiar sound of the grey van gaining on her, getting louder. She started to run,  not bothering to blend in. Only thinking _Never again, Never again._ She continued running, now always checking over her shoulder. Only halve of her mined paying attention to her path. The other halve was busy pushing back memories.

* * *

_The Avengers_

 A few homeless people turned around when they entered the backyard of the restaurant. They soon just went back to their own business. Steve walked into the middle "Has anyone here seen someone with a computer, or has anyone left in the last few minutes?" he  said loud over the whole place. Nobody moved and they just ignored them. Just one of them came closer to Steve. "What are you going to do with her?" he asked.

"Give her a medal for what she did to _my_ system!" Tony said hovering five meters over the ground. He had just finished to clean his system. "Hey, what do you think. We are probably going to hand her over to Shield." He started to descent "What's your name?"

"I'm Frank" The homeless person replied facing Tony. He continued angrily "But you can't hand her over to Shield. You have to protect her from _them._ She was just scared!"

"She was scared, so she hacked my system?" Tony asked almost laughing. "I make more sense when I'm drunk!" He landed on the ground and avoided the look he got from Natasha for his last comment.

"Why is she afraid of Shield" Clint asked ignoring Tony's outburst. He really had to stop to think he knew everything right away.

"She's not afraid of Shield. But she told me that _they_ would find her if anyone knew where she was, even Shield!" The Frank looked stressed.

"Then tell us who she is and where she is so we can help her!" Natasha said. Stepping closer, faking a smile. This was of course a lie, they just needed to find her. They probably wouldn't be able to help her a lot, and no one really wanted to. She had hacked Tony and could have exposed some real bad information, there was no real reason why they should get into more trouble because of her.

"You have to promise to keep her save" Frank answered, he was about to crack. He was selling her out to them, and he wasn't sure if that really was the right thing to do.

"We promise" Natasha said. They would probably keep her safe. Just in a jail cell in Shield.

"We call her Silent, nobody knows her real name. She never speaks, almost never shows any facial expression. She has been staying here for almost halve a month now and has left just ten minutes ago. You have to help her, she's just twelve years old."

"Wait twelve years? And on the streets alone?" Clint said worried and concerned for the person he had hated a few seconds ago. Living on the streets was hard, He knew. Suddenly a grin crept on his face "Hey Tony you were hacked by a twelve year old. Oh I'm so going to hold that against you in the future." He enjoyed every single time when Tony was beaten at something he had claimed to be the best at.

"Hey I had forgotten to upgrade my firewall over the last few month because someone couldn't wait to get his own Archery range in the Tower!" Tony replied walking towards Clint. He hated being reminded of failure, especially when it wasn't long past, or even worse, while it was still happening.

"Stop it you two" Natasha interrupted them, almost drilling them into the ground with her glare. _There is a twelve year old hunted by someone out there, who had managed to hack Tony, and he and Clint can't think about anything other than how to annoy each other?_ She thought when she walked in between the two and faced Frank again."How can we find her? What does she look like?"

"She's small maybe 1.40. She is probably half Asian and has log dark hair. Promise me you'll protect her!" He responded.

"Protect her from whom?" Natasha asked. _Why did this child chose to live on the street, and what did it stand to gain by Hacking Stark Industries? Who was she so afraid of?_ She hoped that there was no new red room. She could stomach everything, but not that.

"She never talked. She sometimes wrote something down. But she was really afraid of them. She said that they call themselves Heart. She never said why they were after here, but she had real bad nightmares. I once tried to wake her up, but a second after I got closer to her than a meter she pinned me to the ground, with a knife. Fully awake." He pointed to thin wound on his throat. "She also has a cat, Loud we call him. While she doesn't talk, if her cat could speak he would swear like sailor. He's probably the only thing she cares about. And she has a backpack that she chained to herself, it never leaves her side."

"Is she coming back?" Clint asked. "You only said that she left. Not that she left forever."

"No she won't come back. Heart was just here. She knew that they were coming and left. I hope she's alright. Heart asked around here. Some of the guys over there sold her out for a little bit of alcohol." He pointed to the other side of the place, where people were swinging beer bottles, clearly disgusted by them. But there was also concern for the girl clearly showing on his face now.

"We will." Clint answered full of honesty. He felt for this girl. What he still didn't understand was why she had hacked Stark, but it was clear that the kid had had a troubled past. The four turned around and walked back to their vehicles.

They started to discuss whether Tony would find them first with his computers or if Natasha could track her faster or if Clint would be the one to find her with the help of Shield. Tony was about to propose a bet when suddenly someone ran into Natasha from behind. Her instincts took over and she threw the person to the ground and was ready to punch him when she realized that it was just a kid.

"Hey Nat calm down" Clit said.

"You there,  are you ok little one?" Steve asked, concerned for the kid. He knew from experience that if Natasha threw you it could hurt, a lot. The girls face was blank, passive. Not even showing a sign of pain. Her backpack had opened up and some of its contents were spilled onto the street. When the girl started to gather her belongings, some food some memory sticks and a few clothing items and a container, a cat ran to her side and leaned against her, purring. The girl started to pat her.

They were concerned for her she realized, she continued to pat Loud. Maybe they didn't realize what she had done to them. She wondered if Frank had told them about her. She checked her body. Thank God that her clothes were still covering her forearms. She didn't know how they would react when they saw the marks and scars. The Number printed on her right underarm. LHT10L#01, Life experiment, Human, testing, 10 years old, long-term  study, id number 01. Everybody freaked when they saw it. If they did it would only be a second before she was back in foster care or juvie, if they found out what she had done. And then _they_ would have her. She sorted through the item in her backpack. nothing looked broken. I'd rather die than to let _them_ get me again she thought bitterly. Well she would, in six month, when she ran out of the liquid that the pills in her from degrading and releasing the poison. Six month of life and then eternal peace, in contrast to eternal  torture. She had evaluated her options every single day. The conclusion was always the same. She would live while she could, avoiding governments, because _they_ had friends everywhere. She would never let herself get back to _them_. And when she died maybe she would see Ashley. Ashley her only friend, she quickly pushed the memories back and checked herself for injuries. She probably only had a sprained wrist. nothing that wouldn't heal. She wondered if the phials with the liquids were broken.  She hoped not, but there was nothing that she could do about that now. She patted Loud. At least she had him.

"Do you need help?" Clint asked after the girl didn't answer.

The girl shook her head and continued to stuff her belongings in her backpack. She tried to get up, but clearly had trouble with her left hand, which she hadn't used till now.

"Hey I'm sorry, really. Please let me check if that is hurt." Natasha asked the girl, pointing at her wrist. She could see the pain in the girls eyes, even thought her face had remained expressionless. _What is wrong with her?_ she tried to get closer to the girl to take a look at her wrist, The cat jumped at her and hissed. The girl just tapped three times against her trouser and the cat left her in peace. She shook her head at Natasha's question, scrambled back and got up, without the use of her left hand. She turned around to walk away.

Skye needed to get away while they didn't make the connections, while they hadn't realized  who she was. But then the archer ran over to her and tried to grab her to stop her. She just started to run, panic taking over, she wasn't running from him now, she was trying to get away from her memories. The ones of her second last foster father, the ones of his cellar. Strong emotions always loosened them, made it easier for them to overwhelm her.  Her whole body was shaking. She couldn't have a breakdown now, not in front of them. The other avengers were close behind Clint. When he grabbed her arm two thinks happened. Loud jumped him and started to claw at his face and the Skye sank down, pulling her head between her hands, breathing heavily and snapping a rubber band against her sprained wrist. Not now, Not now. She tried to hold back the memories, tried to focus on reality, on the sharp pain of the rubber band on her left wrist, but she felt herself slipping, memories overwhelming her. NOT NOW.

 _She was cowered into a small corner. Mr. Jackson had just come home, and he didn't seem to be happy. He started screaming at her as soon as he entered the room. "Go on make yourself useful. Make dinner. Don't you sit there you ungrateful brat. I took you in. You should be thanking me!" He was breathing heavily. Mrs. Jackson was standing at the top of the stairs glancing down quickly before going back into her room ignoring what was going on underneath her. "The whole day I help this city, control the traffic, help keep up order. But who is ever thankful for a policemen?_ _No One Ever Respects What I Do!" he threw each word at her like a brick. "What are you still standing there. Start cooking. I want to relax when I come home. And Elizabeth has to take care of you the whole day" Skye scrambled back further. When he was in a rant like this it was impossible to get out unhurt. He started to walk towards her. He grabbed both her hands and pulled her closer. "You can't even do a simple task can you? Totally useless and no respect. I'll teach you!" He dragged her down  the stairs and made her stand in a bathtub, her hands tied to a wooden pillar above her head. He lifted up her shirt and took the bamboo cane that was lying on the Table behind him. "I hope that you know that it's your fault. If you just did what I ask of you we wouldn't have to do this!" He swung the cane._

"Hey Clint what the hec?" Natasha shouted. Clint was still struggling to fight the cat. "He calm down Spider!" Tony interrupted her. It was rare that Natasha lost her cool, but the kid had somehow got past Natasha's walls. "Could someone help me with this furball?" Clint asked breathing heavily, while trying to keep the cats claws out of reach. "You know you deserve that" Natasha said. "The girl was clearly scared." She walked over to him and managed to get the cat back to the ground, from where it ran directly over to the girl, who started to absently stroke her. getting calmer with each breath.

_She felt her hand touch something soft, she focused on it pushing away the memory. She started to remember where she was. The memory fading more and more._

"Hey are you ok?" Natasha asked, concerned for the kid. She got down on her knees and looked the girl in her eyes. "You can tell me what happened, I'll listen. I won't tell anyone." she tried to comfort her. What had happened to her she wondered. The girl slowly stopped shaking. Once she did she directly tried to get back up again. "Hey slow down." Natasha said. She felt Clint touch her shoulder. She got up and he whispered to her. "I don't think she can talk. I think she's the girl we are looking for. And the guy said that she never talked." He said.


	2. Saving someone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye runs from the Avengers only to save them again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fanfic was inspired by multiple fanfics about Kid Skye. Hope I add a new twist to that.
> 
> After the helpfull comments of 'thesheepofdestiny' I decided to rewrite it form the beginning.
> 
> I do not own Skye or any of the Avengers, or any other Marvel charakters.

_Skye_

She could see it in his eyes when he recognized her. She had to get away fast. They wouldn't let her leave willingly. They would put her into juvie or give her to Shield. And then _they_ would catch her there. Even if they helped her escape _them_ now. _They_  would just come back. She opened her side pocket and pulled out a smoke bomb. It was an easy self build, but made for a good getaway. She ignited it while the archer was talking with the women and Ironman talked to the Captain. They were discussing what to do with her but had forgotten to secure here first. She was just a child, what could she do? She threw the bomb and moved into position. A second later chaos happened.

* * *

  _Avengers_

"You think she hacked me? From what, an old laptop?" Tony asked Steve, disbelieving. If this girl had hacked him without help she was good. His firewall was as close to perfect as it got in the IT world. Of course nothing was perfect there, but his security systems were as close to it as it got, and if she managed to hack him then she had some talent.  
"She fits the description" Steve said. "She hasn't spoken, has a cat is about 1.40 and half Asian. It's a perfect match. I just wonder who those Heart guys are, and if they are still after her. She probably hasn't got the answers we need, but they might have."  
"Probably not, but it's a start. Let's try to get her into the car without casing another breakdown. The media is going to have a field day with this one alone. Whatever happened to her must have been real bad." He turned around just in time to see the girl they were talking about throwing a small burning bundle. "Watch out" He managed to scream. A second later they were enveloped in smoke. Natasha turned around almost immediately, when she got the smell of burning black powder. She only heard Tony scream to watch out before she was engulfed by smoke too. When she turned to where the girl had been she noticed that the girl was gone.  
"Why weren't you watching her?" She screamed at Tony. They had been really stupid. The girl had managed to hack Tony, but still they had written her of as a mere hacker and orphan, not someone who would be that resourceful. They hadn't been giving her the attention that she needed.

"I thought you were doing that with your eight eyes Spidy. Don't get so upset. There are still the traffic cameras." He replied.

 They moved out of the smoke, Natasha and Steve ended up coming out close to their vehicles, while Clint came out on the opposite side and Tony was above it all. People were running everywhere. If they didn't find her soon they were sure going to lose her amongst them. Natasha turned to Steve.

"Hey Steve, think you could give me a lift?" she pointed at the building they were standing next to.

"How high?" he asked her.

"To the top"

"Wait a sec before you jump, there's something I'm curious about. Remember how she was running when we first met her? And how Frank told us that those Heart people had just been there?" He asked Natasha and turned to the building to get in position.

"You think they were after her? That would mean that they are probably here somewhere! Tell the others. I'm going to take a look from up there." She started to run and used Captains shield as a springboard. She was up on the roof a second later. They continued to survey the area for five more minutes, but nobody could see the girl, nor some strange looking men. The problem was, that they had no idea what Heart agents looked like. And the chaos from the smoke bomb didn't make thinks a lot better. When nothing turned up they meet back at the cars.

"Anyone got an Idea where she would go?" Steve asked. Everyone shook their heads. Not one of them had seen her.

"Tony, any luck with the cameras?" Natasha asked.

"No. That girl was good. She blocked all the cameras around here. And when I tried to get past her she pinged my servers from low level Shield servers. I couldn't stop her without restarting those. She's got skill. I just hope we find her before Heart does."

"Are you telling me that you restarted shield servers without permission?" Clint asked. "This day is just getting better and better. First you're hacked, now you made Furry mad. You've never gotten yourself into this much trouble before. I'm so going to hold this day against you in the future!" He said with a grin on his face. Steve turned towards him.

"I'd ask you not to, but you're not going to listen anyway, so I'm going to ask you to try not to overdo it." Steve turned back to the others "Think there's anything we can do here?"

* * *

  _Skye_

She had really managed to get away. Skye was running through the crowd. She had managed to escape. She hated the panic attacks. They came in the worst of moments. Always when she really couldn't have one. She felt ashamed of herself after them. Why couldn't she be normal. What the heck was wrong with her that she always almost blacked out when a men gabbed her against her will. Why couldn't she just shake it off.  She continued walking down the street, away from the Avengers and Heart. A minute later she ducked into a corner and pulled out her laptop. She started her standard wiping programs and closed it again. She couldn't be found on the Traffic cameras now anymore. Another look on her phone told her that the heart guys hadn't managed to follow her either. She entered a small alley and started to climb up an old fire escape. Two times she almost slipped because the steps had gotten to rusted to hold her weight. When she was finally on top of the building she continued to walk back to where she had met the Avengers. She was curious what they were going to do.

The Avengers were leaving, that much was clear from her viewpoint. They were not looking for her anymore. At least not here. She opened her backpack. She needed to check if the phials were broken. She opened up the small container and froze, tears welling up in her eyes. This can't be. It can't be. This day was getting worse and worse. Almost getting caught by Heart, then by the Avengers, and now she could only stare at the broken phials. The last drops of clear fluid leaking out of them. She was supposed to have six month. That's why she had hacked the Avengers in the first place. To move into one of the apartments on their tower without them noticing. Heart wouldn't have been able to get to her then, and the Avengers or anybody else wouldn't know where she was, wouldn't send her back into the orphanage. Or worse juvie. Heart would find her there for sure. They would walk over a Shield base to get to her. She pulled out a small pet-bottle and started to fill what she could save into it. At the end she managed to save about 30 ml, enough for ten days. After that she would have another week or so. Like Ashley. She pushed the thought of her out of her mind. When she took another look down she could see the Avengers getting into a car. She also saw a small light from underneath the car, reflected by a puddle, blinking. She had seen this a few times. The first had been when Heart had destroyed the Harvey's house with a similar device to 'clean up' the scene.  They had probably 30 seconds left. She freaked, conflicted as to what she was supposed to do. She couldn't let Heart capture her, but she also couldn't let them die. Their death would be on her. Like Ashley's, or the Harvey's. She couldn't be the reason more good people got hurt. Not after she failed Ashley so badly. And even if they caught her, seventeen days was not enough for Heart to get her out of Shield, and it wasn't enough for Shield to reproduce the liquid either. She hoped. She would never go back to _them_. Never. She'd rather die. She grabbed a brick close by and threw it as hard as she could. It landed short a few centimeters. She took another brick, The engine had already started and she could see the light starting to blink rapidly. She knew that meant that they only had  
ten seconds left. She aimed, the Car started slowly.  
Nine seconds. She threw, her small, untrained and underfeed, body saw from running. She was exhausted. The car was moving now.  
Eight seconds, the Brick was on its way down. She could see that Ironman had seen it.  
Seven seconds. The stone managed to hit the side of the car. Tony searching the for where the stone had come from. She could see the car stopping.  
Six seconds. The doors were opening. Skye knew she needed to run. Ironman would figure out the stone had come from her. He was already looking around, flying upwards.  
Five seconds. The avengers were walking out of the car, searching for her. She could see Iron man looking down. She really needed to move. They would capture her. But she wanted to be free. All her live she wanted to be free, to live in peace. But she couldn't move.  
Four seconds. Ironman had seen the bomb. He shouted something. The avengers were still looking around, listening. Skye felt something against her left leg. Loud. She was growling at something in the crowd that had gathered to the right of the Avengers  
Three seconds. The avengers were running. Ironman tried to clear away whoever was left after Skye's smoke bomb. Skye took a look to the right. She took in the crowd.  
Two Seconds. They were five meters from the car. Ironman was pushing back the scared crowds. Skye could only watch it unfold. Her body frozen. Her mined racing when she saw what Loud had tried to tell her. She saw _them._ Her mind froze. While she had been previously telling herself to move or she would be caught, not to scream at the avengers to hurry up, trying to calm herself down, Now there was only pure fear. While before her body was only frozen before, now she was paralyzed. She could barley breath. The air was scraping over the back of her throat. Her lung burning. She saw them looking at her. _They had seen her_. The drew their guns, unnoticed admits the crowd.  
One second. She could see Natasha diving behind Captain America's Shield. Hawkeye rolling himself behind a dumpster. The red light had stopped blinking. Skye could feel her muscles tensing up, almost shattering her bones. She stopped breathing. Her heart doing a hundred miles an hour. And her thoughts were coming back all at once. She saw one of the Heart agents aiming at her while the other one targeted The black Widow. Not again. Please. She'd rather die. No more testing. No more experimentation. No more Imprisonment. No more pain. But she had to warn them, they were to focused on the bomb. She threw another stone.  
Zero seconds. The world turned to Chaos. The stone hit next to Natasha making her jump. She could hear the guns going off, almost simultaneously. Nearly directly after the bomb, throwing the car into the air. Natasha was nicked by a bullet, Skye could see the red strain forming on shoulder blade. The small jump had put her head out of the line of fire. A blink of an eye later they were hit by the shockwave and engulfed by the fireball from the bomb. At the same time Skye registered a small prick on her neck. They'd hit her. Was the only thing she thought. She scrambled towards the stairs, Loud wailing sadly behind her, wondering why she moved so slowly and scared by the bomb. She could hear more gunshots behind her.

* * *

_Avengers_

Natasha scrambled behind Steve's shield. Whoever had thrown the stone had probably saved them from being weeks in recovery, and she hated that. Maybe even from permanent damage. She could see that the light had stooped blinking. People were running around like chickens. Crowd behavior Bruce had called it. She heard a small _thuk_ next to her and jumped. A millisecond later she heard two guns going off and she felt a small sting on her left shoulder. She looked up. She had barely enough time to see the girl from before The bomb went off. Who is she?  First she hacked them. then they gave her a panic attack. Then she threw a smoke bomb and now she saved them again. She felt the airwave pushing them back. The sudden increase in air pressure almost burst her eardrum next they were engulfed by flames. She saw shrapnel from the car flying by them. That bomb would have done some serious damage. She would have to thank the girl when they found her. When the fireball had past she pulled out her guns and jumped up, rolling behind a Stone pillar to her right. She looked to see if there were still civilians in danger. Almost all had cleared out. She rolled to the next pillar in front of her. She could hear Tony ordering Steve to protect any civilians still around.

"But you are going to tell Fury what happened. I'm not going to take the fall for this!" Steve replied.

"Oh Fury is going to have a field day. I agree with Steve.  You should do it. Steve is to responsible to let us get into a situation like this, I and Natasha previously worked for shield. And he is used to chaos following you when you do something." Clint agreed over the coms. He shot a tranquilizer arrow at the left guy.

"O hell no. I'm not responsible for all of this!" Tony said. He didn't show it, but he was secretly freaked out by Fury. That guy was just a notch to creepy.  A bullet bounced of his armor.

"You were hacked, you shut down their servers, one of your car's blew up. You forgot to check if it was save..." Natasha listed. She was Interrupted by Tony.

"Are you teaming up on me?" He asked. "We're going to discuss this when we get back. Now let's get this guy before he decides to run. I hate it when someone wastes my time when the outcome is clear." He turned to Jarvis "Jarvis activate a Quinjet for transportation, rendezvous  at my location"

Natasha managed to get the second guy when he turned to run with an electrified dart. The men collapsed to the ground shaking and convulsing.

 When Natasha tried to cuff him his jacket fell off. On his uniform was no symbol she recognized, but a genetic strain with the letters HEART written between the base pairs.

She looked to Steve and Clint who had brought the second first one over to Tony and chained him to a lamp post. "Think you can wake yours up to get information, or should we wait till the jet is here?" She asked them.

"Let's wake him up to see if there are any more of them close by." Steve replied. Clint took out a syringe from his backpack and jabbed it in the guys neck. He started to shudder, and a second later his eyes opened.

"Are there any more of you here?" Natasha asked. The others stepped back. If you wanted information she was the quickest way to get it.

The man just laughed "You don't scare me" and spat in her face. Or at least tried to. It was a bad move. Natasha took his left hand and broke his index and ring finger. The man continued to laugh. "They cut the Nerves that transmit pain in our spinal cords. You can't cause me pain. and with that he dislocated his  left thumb and pulled the hand out of the cuff, scraping and peeling the skin of his hand. He used his right hand to swing at her with the handcuff. She blocked the attack and pushed him up against a wall. He caught, but it sounded more like a squished laughter. "You don't get it do you?" He asked with a smile on his face, while the Black widow was choking him. "You won't get information, because we don't know much, and  because you can't inflict pain on us." Natasha loosened her hold and let him get a breath of fresh air. How were those people who created soldiers who felt no pain and who chased small girls? She heard a loud humming sound and saw a quinjet coming down. She looked at Tony questioningly. "Think you can get him to talk back at the base, maybe soften the blows you get from Furry?".

He answered "At least there is something we can get from this day. Today really sucked." he walked towards Natasha.

"You won't get me talking" The prisoner said, still laughing, when Tony was standing an arm's length away from him. He started shaking hysterically. "For research. For perfection. For HEART!" he screamed and bit down on something in his mouth. His partner had awoken to and had done the same thing. They both breathed out a blue gas.

"Gat back" Tony screamed and pushed himself between Natasha and the man.

"What the... ?" Clint managed to say, caught by surprise as the men's faces slowly turned to stone. The transformation continued to roll down their bodies until they had turned completely. Then they began to crumble, stone turning to dust, which gathered into small piles where seconds before a human being had stood. 

"Hey Tony do you know anything that does that? Have you got any idea what that was?" Steve asked pointing at the dust piles. Clint was already getting a sample.

"No. Jarvis only managed to tell me that that blue gas was alien. And I think we can safely say that our only living lead has turned into a dead end. At least the cleanup is going to be easy." Tony replied. He stomped into the ground. "This day just keeps getting better and better! I just hope Fury had a busy day."

"Not all the leads are dead!" Natasha replied. "The girl is still alive. Has anyone seen her?"

"I haven't seen her after she threw the bricks down on us. That girl has some serious communication problems!" Tony replied. The Avengers entered the quinjet.  "Everybody buckle up. At home I'm going to do an extensive research on that girl, there is not a lot of use doing so now." He continued.

* * *

  _Skye_

Skye was running. No more like falling down the stairs, her hand gripping the rail. When she reached the bottom she could see the avengers securing the Heart agents to lamp posts. There were only two. They had probably phoned back in and in a few Hours this part of the city would be crawling with Heart personal. She had to get away, but she didn't have a lot of time. The sedative was already making her legs shake. She could see the Quinjet and decide to make a run for it. She ran, then more like stumbled over to the plane. When she reached it, the Avengers were mainly focused on their captives she pulled herself up into the landing gear, and with her last bit of strength shuffled out of the way of the construction. She could hear the man screaming and could imagine far too clearly how he was going to die. She started to remembered the first time she had seen someone die like that, she couldn't fight of the memories like she normally did. Her mind was too clouded. She felt like her lunch was going to come back up, which was not a side effect from the sedative, but from the memory. It was always like that. Every time she thought of Ashley, how she had failed her. She had caused her only friends death. Back at the facility the doctors had injected Ashley with multiple pills, similar to the one the two agent had taken just now. The pills were made out of a crystal coated with a biodegradable substance. If you didn't get the right chemicals injected,  the coating would dissolve, slowly. And as soon as your body  touched the crystal it turned to stone. Ashley's pills lasted for a week without medication. One pill had been in her left arm, they had been able to see the blue becoming more and more pregnant each day. To save her the doctors had given Skye a simple task, she had to stay conscious during the procedures. If she did they gave Ashley the delaying chemical. But she hadn't been able to man up enough, to stay conscious often enough when they injected her, or cut her open to sample probes, or when they had measured her pain response. They said that they needed her to be conscious to find what they were looking for. She had caused her friend's death. She had been, too weak to much a crybaby. Ashley had died because of her, she had only been able to delay her death by a month. Ashley who had thought her to survive on her own, who had gotten her out of her last abusive foster home, who had been the first person that had cared about her. And now she was dead. Dead because of her. It made her sick. She had failed. The memory of Ashley's death, how she had turned to stone in a last hug, came back. But before it overwhelmed her the sedative took over and she fell asleep.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment on whether you've liked it or what I should change. I have never been good with language so if you find any mistakes please let me know. Constructive criticism is appreciated.


	3. Finally safe, just not yet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye enters the Avengers Tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fanfic was inspired by multiple fanfics about Kid Skye. Hope I add a new twist to that.
> 
> After the helpfull comments of 'thesheepofdestiny' I decided to rewrite it form the beginning.
> 
> I do not own Skye or any of the Avengers, or any other Marvel charakters.

_Skye_

When Skye woke up the plane had already landed. She peeked outside the wheel well. The plane was standing inside a hangar. It was small containing only one other aircraft and the ceiling barley a meter above the planes highest point. Skye stretched her legs. Trying to loosen them up. They had cramped up horribly while she had been crouched inside the small wheel well. She poked her head down, luckily there was no one there. The only problem would be the security cameras. She opened her laptop and activated the virus which she had tried to hide with her crude attempt at gathering information. A minute later her laptop connected itself to the tower wide W-Lan. Tony had been too arrogant to look for a more beautiful, carefully designed code. He had probably written her hack of as luck, with how simple and bad her obvious Trojan had seemed and hadn't bothered to look to deep into all the files. Her month of work had paid off. She looped the security cameras and ran quietly to the next air vent. She disabled the laser grid with her phone and squeezed inside. She took the shortest route to the closest elevator shaft. She disabled the security measures before her and reactivating them when she had passed them. She managed to avoid detection by the Avengers, by always making sure the hallways in front of her were clear of people, on the security footage. Once she reached the elevator shaft she noticed she had a problem. There was no save way down. She was trapped at the top layer. She couldn't get back out and she couldn't get down. She was trapped. It was only a question of time till the Avengers found her.  She had failed again. The sense of helplessness and the felling of failure triggering memories of the words that she had heard from almost every adult in her life. Making them repeat over and over in her head. "You are useless!", "Are you Stupid?", "You relay can't do anything right, can you." She barely managed to hold back the sobs. She should have seen this coming. She really was stupid. She tried to take a deep breath, but couldn't. She was a failure. She continued rocking back and forth for a few minutes, the words and her thought running circles in her head, when she heard a calming purr coming from behind her. Loud was still in her backpack. He had jumped in when she had made a run for the Quinjet. She slowed her movements and carefully moved her backpack  to the front, every part of her body still shaking, and let Loud out of it. She tapped twice on her thighs and then help a finger to her mouth. Loud understood and stopped purring immediately. He rolled himself into Skye's lap, making her relax. She started stroking him focusing only on their bond and friendship. She started to feel better, pushing back her bad memories, and continued patting the cat. __

* * *

___Avengers_

When the Quinjet landed the Avengers went down into their quarters to get changed before they met back at the common room. Steve arrived first, followed shortly by Natasha and then Clint. Bruce was already there. Tony came in lat, dressed casual, the Arc reactor shining through his T-shirt.

"So has anyone got any Idea what we are going to tell Furry? I still vote that I'm not going o be the person doing the talking." Tony sais, and adds "Maybe I'll ask pepper!"

"Tony" Natasha just hisses, making him jump. Tony was such an ass. How was Pepper still with him?

"Ok, Ok. I have no Idea what you have against letting Pepper tell Fury. But I won't ask her. Maybe you could use you're charm to play down the situation?" Tony responds.

"Oh Tony, just stop it. We don't want you complaining again for a week over some small bruises you got, because Natasha gave you a small nudge." Steve intervened. "Maybe we should try to focus on getting some real information."

"You have nothing?" Bruce asks. He turned to Natasha "What happened with that little girl you threw to the ground?"

"All we know is, that we were hacked by that 'little girl', who was running from an organization called Heart. She also..." Natasha started to replied, but was interrupted by Tony. She turned to face him.

"Hey. We don't need to hear how you needed a little girl to save you're live." Tony said. Natasha really wanted to punch him now, but managed to hold back. Only because he hadn't seen the bomb and managed to help them while the girl had, he had to blame someone else for something else. She took a deep breath, while Tony continued to say "but I found something in the Shield database. There was a raid on a previously unknown facility, which as it turns out was from Heart, six month back. The raid was simple, because someone had already hacked there system and disabled their sensors and cloaking without them noticing. It's the only reference in the Shield database of Heart."

"You think that's why they are after her?" Bruce asked disbelieving. "You think a small girl managed to hack a secret organization?"

"That's not the main reason why they were after her. She is connected to an 084 that we lost touch with about two and a halve years back." Furry said and stepped out from behind a corner, making everyone jump. "And your security system sucks."

He turned to Tony, who was trying to carefully stepped back before anyone, especially Furry noticed him. Fury just looked at him, he seemed angry. His look fixing Tony to the ground. "And you didn't even manage to hold her. Instead she escaped and you lost the other two witnesses you had in custody. _And_ you ended up disrupting shield servers." He looked at everyone else in the room. "You also created some chaos and let a bomb go of in the middle of New York. Great work. You managed to beat an alien invasion, but are outsmarted by a small girl and two low level criminals. This is not what I imagined when I helped create the Avengers initiative."

"Hey we didn't know that she would be this creative. Which kid carries a smoke bomb around with them these days. And..." Tony Tried to defend himself, but was interrupted by Fury.

"A kid whose being chased by criminals and wants to escape at all coasts, without risking too many lives." Fury looked disappointed.  "A cornered dog will always give you the hardest fight. No matter what it's size is. That's the first rule you learn for a fight."

"Ok we should have checked her for weapons, but would you have done that after the breakdown she had when we Clint grabbed her? I didn't want to scare her anymore." Natasha tried to explain. That poor girl had been scared enough. "A full body search probably would have made her black out completely!" What was Fury expecting of them. And why was this girl so important to him? "What was that 084 that she was connected to exactly?"

"That Information is above you're clearance. And it is not important." Furry answered. He turned to face Tony again "Now why did you shut down our servers?"

"That girl that is connected to the 084 that we know nothing about hacked them and used them to disable the CCTV Cameras." Steve said accusingly. "I think you should tell us more about this girl and the 084. Remember what happened the last time? You initiated an alien invasion. I think it's up to us to decide what is important."

"All we know about Heart is from the research lab that we raided six month back. It seems that they were studying and experimenting the 084 that was somehow connected to her. That's all we were able to find out about Heart. If you find the girl let me know. Shield is better equipped to handle children then you are." Fury answered and left the room before anyone could ask him anything else. He had still not explained how a human could be connected to an 084.

* * *

_Skye_

Five minutes later Skye had calmed down enough to think clearly. She had to get down somehow. The stairs were not an option and the elevator or the elevator cables weren't either. The metal structure would be too hard to climb. She needed a rope. She pulled out her backpack and started replaying the security footage from the last month in quick forward, looking for any possible place where she could get some rope. After twenty minutes lying in the ventilation shaft looking on her laptop she finally found it. The security camera showed Hawkeye entering his room with some climbing gear a few days back.  When he came back out hid had left it. She started making her way through the shafts towards his room. Always making sure that there were at least three doors between her and the next Avenger. When she reached his room she almost blacked out. His stuff was everywhere. Finding some order in this chaos would be difficult, finding some specific item next to impossible. She climbed out of the air vent and onto a small cupboard. She positioned her laptop against the wall and plugged it's charging cable into the closest socket she could find. The battery was almost drained. She stared searching and had to stop herself from groaning out loudly when she opened the first drawer. He had stuffed everything in here. Some arrows, some other hunting gear along with electronic devices and office gear. She continued her search while also regularly checking her computer display to see if anyone was walking towards her. She could see the Avengers talking to the guy with the eye patch. They seemed to be angry at him, but he intimidated them somehow. A minute later she saw the guy leave. The Avengers were still discussing something, but she could see that they were about to scatter and she still had no idea where the climbing gear or even a piece of rope was. She continued searching , her movements getting more and more frantic . When she looked back at the monitor she could see that they had stopped talking and were scattering. She continued her search, looking through all kinds of weapon lockers. But still no sign of a rope. She looked back at her laptop and saw the Hawkeye and the Black Widow entering the elevators, making their way up to her level. Up till now she had counted twelve bows, three of which were broke, about ten dozen arrowheads, in and outside of some quivers. The hero outfit in many varieties, some letters, multiple different knifes scattered throughout the room.  And even a collection of spyglasses. But still no dam sign of a rope. And they were getting closer. She could feel cold sweat forming on her forehead and neck, some drops rolling down her hair into her T-Shirt and rolling down her spine, leaving a cold trail of water on her back. Where was the rope!? She continued her search, looking under his mattress, lifting it up, by slipping underneath it and pushing it up on her back. There, next to  all kinds of prizes and Statues for marksman competitions, it was. A rope and some climbing gear. She took out the climbing gear, hoping he wouldn't notice it was gone. She took a quick glanced at the monitor and almost froze. The elevator had reached the level 4 stories below, meaning that they would reach this room in about five minutes. And she had to get out way before that, else they might hear her crawling in the vents.  she packed up her computer and stuffed the climbing gear in her backpack. She then climbed back into the air vents and pulled the cover back on. On her phone she could see them coming closer. But there were still 4 doors between them. She had done it, she felt momentary relive washing over her. She started crawling back to the elevator.

* * *

_Clint and Natasha_

Natasha and Clint had arrived on the floor with the private rooms. They were all down after the day they had had. First getting their ass handed to them by some low life criminals, a small, mute, scared girl and then getting scolded by Furry. Natasha turned to her room.  No one wanted to admit it, but they had been scolded by Furry. She entered her room and booted up her laptop.  They all had different methods to deal with days like this. She focused on finding information and reasons, Clint would be training or patrolling the city, Steve was probably punching his way through the punching bags or going for a run, Bruce was likely working in his lab, and Tony was either burying himself in his garage or drinking. Maybe both. She had just opened up the shield files when someone knocked on her door.

Clint didn't bother waiting for a reply and just entered the room. He had white cream all over his shirt. "Who was in my room? When I left the arrowhead for the explosive arrow was on the left. No it seems as if it was one of the arrowheads meant for blinding." He said furiously and continued "How could I know that it would go off when I tried to open it. The triggers are totally different."

Natasha had to hold back a laugh. The situation was too funny. Clint standing in her doorframe, white cream splattered over his clothes going on about someone messing up his room. It probably was Tony. He was the only one who would be childish enough to do this. What was suspicious was that Pepper hadn't stopped him. Natasha stood up and walked over to Clint. "First calm down. I'll bet it was Tony, but for the sake of you're dignity, which has been compromised enough, get yourself cleaned up, before you talk to anyone else. I'll delete the security footage from you. " She quickly pulled out her mobile phone and took a picture of Clint before he could turn around. "But I'll keep this. It might come in handy in the future."

Clint started to run at Natasha trying to get the cell phone, but she just placed the tip of her foot between the cream on his shirt "No, You're not coming in here with that" She pointed at his shirt then gapped his arm and dragged him out of the room and closed the door behind him.

* * *

_Fifteen minutes later : Tony's Lab_

Clint and Natasha found Tony deep in concentration, working on some electronic circuit. When Clint yelled his name he jumped, causing him to accidentally trigger a repulsor, sending a blast straight through his desk. He turned "What the Hell? I told you not to sneak up on me while I'm working." He pointed at the desk "look what happened because of you. That's the third this month. I thought that all Humans had the ability to learn."

"I thought so too, until I started working on my arrows and one blew up, because _someone_ thought it might be a good prank to switch their order." Clint replied.

"Oh Trick shot, why is it always me. Maybe Capsicle has finally warmed up a bit and decided to have a little bit of fun." Tony replied.

"Oh shut up Tony, we know it was you, no one else would do something so stupid and reckless." Natasha snapped at him.

"Hey It really wasn't me this time. No  reason to get this angry Nat." Tony replied, taking a step back. He stumbled over the desk, that had been damaged by the repulsor. He just managed to keep his balance, but was now stuck between an angry Clint, next to whom was, even worse an angry and deadly spider in front of him and the broken desk behind him.

Natasha turned to Clint, evaluating Tonys almost loss of balance. "He's not lying, he didn't do it. Let's see if there is any security footage of someone entering you're room." She turned to Tony "And you might as well help us."

Even thought they searched the footage of the whole last week they didn't find anything and after Clint had cooled down they shrugged it off. No one had been in Clint's room, so nobody could have done it. It was probably just a stupid mistake. Halve an hour later everyone was back, doing what they had been doing before. Natasha pulled herself closer to the laptop and restarted her search for hacks that were similar to the one of the girl. Somehow she couldn't get the girl out of her mind, especially her face. Her eyes so full of fear and hurt, while her face was neutral, showing no facial expression whatsoever.

* * *

_Skye_

She put on the climbing harness, thankful for the day the Harvey's had taken her camping. She held onto the memory, but it was replaced to quickly with the moment of their death. She pushed that one away quickly, before it took control off her mind. She tide the rope around a support beam and made her way down the back of the elevator shaft, slowly descending next to the cables for the counterweight. When she was about five stories down she stopped and climbed back into an air vent. She took of the climbing gear and secured it o another support beam. She pulled up the rope, which, probably thanks to stark or Shield was extremely lightweight, so thin that it could only be used with the harness she _borrowed_ ,  had a length of about 500m, which was enough to reach the bottom of this tower,  but was still able to carry her weight.  She secured the rope to and climbed through the air vent towards the main floor on this level. She pulled the security feed and replaced it, for the whole floor, with a copy of the day before. She then let herself down on the ground and started walking. She almost jumped, but then just shock her fists in the air, the tension she had had slowly falling of her. She had actually done it. She had managed to break into the Avengers Tower. Even if Heart found her they would have to go past the Avengers, who didn't know she was here, so that they wouldn't send her to some state agency, from which Heart would be able to kidnap her. She was save. She walked over to a door at the far end of the hallway and entered it. Behind it as a nice apartment. It was not a house, but from the size of it, it was probably close to being one. She walked into the living room. The setting sun was shining through the curtains. There was some dust on the floor. This level had probably not been entered by anyone else after the Chitauri  Invasion. She hoped it would stay that way for the next three weeks. She opened her backpack and let Loud out of it before she continued to walk through the apartment. It had a bedroom, its own bathroom and even a kitchen. She looked at her watch and set down on a couch. It was a quarter  to ten pm. She pulled the case with her 'medication', a syringe made out of some kind of unbreakable glass, a small bottle of alcohol and some clean swabs out of her backpack. She walked over into the kitchen and filled a small pot with water and started heating it. When it was boiling she pulled some of the water  into the syringe and pushed it back out. she continued this a few more time and finally threw the syringe into the boiling water. She waited five more minutes and then turned off the stove. She dumped the water into the sink and let the syringe cool down. Meanwhile she pulled back her left sleeve and prepared the bottle with the last few drops of her medication. When she looked at it it became all too clear how much she had lost to get to this place. Before today she had six month left to live and now it was merely ten days. She had to fight back some tears. Anger, frustration and helplessness washing  over her. She sat down and took a few deep breath. She took a small towel and used it as a tourniquet for her left arm. She then grabbed the small bottle of alcohol and a swab and cleaned the syringe with it. She then pulled 3ml out of the bottle into the clan syringe and looked down at her arm.  She hated that part of the day. It had been hard the first time. After she had escaped she had been left with enough for about a year, but had almost been too afraid to use it.

_She was leaning against a tree, a small river in front of her. She had escaped the Facility about a day ago, as far as she could tell. She pulled a small case out of her right sleeve. She had somehow managed to take the jacket and trousers when she had escaped. She opened it, knowing what was inside. She knew that too survive she needed to inject herself with the fluid, she could probably do it too, she had seen them inject her enough times. She pulled her left sleeve back, again. And set the already filled syringe on top of a vein on her left arm. She just needed t push, get it over with. But it was so hard. Something in the back of her mind screamed at her not to. She put the syringe back and rolled down her sleeve. Why couldn't she do it. She had been sitting her for over an hour and had gotten nowhere. She tried to hold back the sobs. She was currently riding an emotional rollercoaster, happiness, relive of being free, mixing with fear, dread and helplessness. Why couldn't she push the plunger? Why? She opened the casing again and redid the procedure. The cold metal needle lying on her exposed skin. It wouldn't even hurt. Not in comparison to what_ they _had done. And_ They _had injected her with this too. Why couldn't she just do it herself.  
Even the thought of pushing the syringe into her arm was enough to make her shake. It was ridiculous. She had gotten  far worse scratches from the escape then the small hole the needle would make, but she couldn't get herself to finish. She took a deep breath and steadied her hand. She closed her eyes and pushed, fighting against the mental barrier that seemed so hard to get over. She could feel the tip of the needle burrowing into her skin putting increasing pressure on it, which in turn increased the mental pressure. She pushed the syringe further fighting against her own instincts, screaming at her not to. Her stomach seemed to twist and turn, but there was nothing in it that she could have expelled anyway. Cold sweat was forming on her skin now. She felt the needle pushing the skin back further, breaking its top layer, and finally she felt the resistance on the syringe decrease. The cold metal penetrating the skin, sliding almost effortlessly through it now. She stopped and carefully opened her eyes. Looking at the object sticking out of her arm. She pulled back the plunger and felt relive as she saw her blood coming swirling into it, meaning that she had gotten the vein. She pushed the contents of the syringe into herself. Once she had put the syringe back the world turned black and she fell into unconsciousness from the mental strain it had taken her for this simple injection._

It had gotten easier. Now she just looked at her arm and pushed the syringe into a vein. She pulled back the plunger and, when she saw the blood coming in, pushed the contents of the syringe into her bloodstream. She boiled some more water and cleaned the syringe. She then settled on a couch and took some energy bars, which she had stolen, out of her backpack. Ten minutes later she had fallen asleep.

The last rays of the sun were now shining on the face of the girl who had endured so much and had so little left. But who was at peace now, because she didn't need to run anymore, because she didn't have to fear for her own safety anymore. And safe was equal to no pain for her, not to life. The thought of death had been accepted by her long ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment on whether you've liked it or what I should change. I have never been good with language so if you find any mistakes please let me know. Constructive criticism is appreciated.


	4. Past horrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye is confrontet with one of her past fosterparents. (Some) of the Avengers learn a bit more about her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fanfic was inspired by multiple fanfics about Kid Skye. Hope I add a new twist to that.
> 
> After the helpfull comments of 'thesheepofdestiny' I decided to rewrite it form the beginning.
> 
> I do not own Skye or any of the Avengers, or any other Marvel charakters.

_Skye_

It was almost midday when Skye was woken up by an annoyed cat running over her.  She opened her eyes slowly, taking in the scene. She was still on the couch, she couldn't hear anyone else, except Loud, who was living up to his name. Skye was surprised that someone else hadn't noticed him. She quickly got up and turned around. She was hungry, Loud obviously too, but there was no food in her backpack. She would have to go down and risk being on the streets.  She could as well get herself some fresh clothes. It would be hard to go unnoticed in this part of town if you smelled to strong. She took her backpack, threw out almost everything that was not important and opened up her Laptop. She would still need money. It was better to only steal once than to have to steal every single item. She had hacked into the Union National Bank before, to get some money. But in return she had upgraded their security system, even if  they didn't realized it. She considered the money she 'stole' pay for her work. Now she would have to do it one last time. She started coding, targeting the ATM across the street. It would react to her cell phone, stopping all video footage once she was close enough. If she then pressed the right buttons she would have enough money to last her for at least a few days. When everything was good she chased Loud around the apartment and put him into the backpack, before making her way back to the elevator shaft. She had hacked the doors so that they now opened up into thin air. She took a deep breath and balanced over to her harness. she quickly secured herself and made her descent down. Behind her she could feel Loud looking out of the backpack, his hair tickling her neck. When she was at the bottom she left through the back air vent. From there she walked over to the ATM, still not attracting any attention. She had learned to blend in a long time ago. It was the best way to hide from angry foster parents, or siblings. She had learned that the hard way. The hack worked flawlessly and ten minutes later she had enough money in her pocket to last for 20 days. Loud had left the pack as soon as they had been outside the building. He had wandered off in search for some food, but Skye knew that he was somewhere close by, just hiding, pretending not to care even if he did. It was what they did. They pretended not to care, while they would actually do anything for each other.  
They continued their shopping trip and Skye entered a small second hand shop. She walked through the aisles and picked out some necessary clothing items. She was about to go to the counter, when she saw him. The one person that scared her as much as Heart did. Why was he here. And No, it couldn't be. Why was there a child with him. He couldn't have fostered a new one. No it wasn't a new one, but Sara. Not Sara. She started to freak out. How could he have fostered her again. How? She had made sure that he couldn't. She had. And now there he was with Sara next to him.  
It had been her first hack. To incriminate him. But now he was here and Sara, who had been her younger foster sister when she had been with him, was standing right next to him, her eyes looking around frightened. Skye crouched into the next aisle, hiding from him, hiding from Mr. Jackson. Like she had done so many times before. When they walked past Skye took a quick glance at Sara's back. There were no signs of scars, or wounds that she could see through the shirt. So maybe she hadn't been hurt jet, at least not physically. It would probably only last a few more days. Then he would get angry. She had to help her, but didn't know how. She quietly walked over to the counter and paid for her clothes. When she was walking out the door she suddenly heard him. He had spotted her. "You brat!" He screamed, she could hear him running after her, while she was running away. But her feet just weren't fast enough. "I'll get you for this" She could hear him coming closer. Just a few more meters and she maybe could lose him in the crowed. But he was gaining too fast. "You know, after you vanished I asked the court to reevaluate the evidence. When they looked closer and found out that you had planted it on my computer and they couldn't find you, they had to let me go. they even apologized." He was behind her, his hand looking around her wrist. The all to familiar contact caused her to collapse, freezing momentarily, before memories overwhelmed her. She was taken back to the first time where he had hurt her. She was rocking back and forth, memories mixing with his voice, getting fueled by it.  But he continued talking, quietly, taking pleasure in the girl rocking in front of him. "You know it took me about two years to get my foster license back? I should give you to the police. Oh wait that's me!" He laughed and continued quietly "But they would only put you in juvie. No I'm going to tell everyone what you did and then foster you again. Be the good cop who helps a unthankful brat get on the right track. I'm going to teach you respect, harder than ever before. And if you disagree, if you talk to someone, who is going to believe you?"  A mean smile slipped on his face. Sara was slowly coming closer, having almost lost them. People were looking at them. When Mr. Jackson noticed he said a bit louder, so that everyone could hear  "What am I going to do with you? You can't just run away again." he paused, then continued "First you're going to come back home with me, and don't you ever run away again. Then we can talk about the rest." He pulled her up and people turned around, nobody liked watching family drama. Skye was still in shock, memories replaying in her mind. The suddenly increased body contact and force, paralyzing her. She stopped shaking, hanging limply from his grip. She was too far away from reality to move, to do anything. But that was only her, there was still someone who cared about Skye, who would do almost anything for her. And he had been hiding on top of a ledge two stories up, and who now was getting very very angry at the man holding _his_ friend.  
Mr. Jackson was walking with Skye through the crowds, she was so skinny that it wasn't hard for him to carry her. He started walking to his car, not paying too much attention to his surroundings. When he reached the end of the crowd he turned around to make sure that nobody was following him. He didn't see anyone on ground level. But it only took the cat a blink of an eye to land on his face from two stories up,  to start clawing at his skin and to sink its teeth in his nose. It took him not much longer to drop the girl, who had snapped out of her nightmares when she had seen the cat. He tried to grab the tail of the cat, but he just bit him in his skin, while using his claws to secure himself on his back, making it almost impossible to reach it. The fight lasted another five seconds, and ended only because Skye had run back into the crowed and signaled Loud, through loud claps, to let go and follow her.

Skye ran into the next side alley she could find. She sat down and tried to slow her breathing. How was he back out and fostering a child, fostering Sara. She had protected her before, how could she now? She hoped that he wouldn't take his anger out on her, but from experience she knew that it did not matter what you did, if he was angry he hurt someone. She continued to breath heavily, her chest stated to hurt, the running mixed together with the anxiety was not a good combination. Her vision started to get clouded by growing black spots. She tried to concentrate, like the Harveys had told her, A deep breath in, then counting to three and then breathing out, slowly. But she couldn't focus. A few seconds passed, and Skye thought, panicking, that she might actually pass out, her breathing getting faster and faster. But then she suddenly felt Loud crawling under her arms, purring, trying to make her feel better. Her attention immediately shifted to the cat. He was the one thing she had cared about since she had gotten out. She started to check for injuries, but he had seemed to have given out far more than he received. The only visibly wound was a small cut on his neck. She would just have to clean it when she returned 'home'. But before she still needed food. She made her way  to the next discounter and activated her sweeping program, so that Mr. Jackson couldn't find her.

* * *

_The Avengers_

Steve was sitting in the common room. He hadn't gotten much sleep last night. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about the girl. She had done thinks that made it impossible for him to determine her motivation. And the one thing he had learned during the war had been that everyone had something that motivated him. But the acts of this girl just didn't fit any scenario and reason he could think of. Who was she, and what was her goal. He stared at his coffee which had turned cold again. He needed to do something else. Distract himself somehow. He walked over to the coffeemaker and made a new one. He was walking back to his seat with the view out of the windows when Natasha entered the room. She took one look at his reflection and smiled sadly.

"Couldn't sleep either? The dam girl kept me awake all night. I found some traces of hacks from her. Whenever she did something negative, like stealing money from a bank, by hacking ATM's, she always left something in return. Sometimes a better algorithm, other times a better firewall. The 'value' of her gift was always far greater then what she took." She sad. looking down tiredly and started making herself some coffee to.

"So we have a girl who lives o the street, is hunted by a secret organization, but still tries to balance her actions out. She steals but always leaves something. But now she just hacks Tony for fun? It doesn't add up." Steve shock his head. They were missing something. Something important.

"So how are we going to find her?" Natasha asked "She has been hiding from a Heart for some time now. She won't be easy to find."

"Maybe not that hard."  Bruce had entered the room. and pointed to something outside of the window, down on the streets. "it seems as if the poor girl has gotten herself into quiet some trouble. Jarvis, would you pull up the CCTV footage of the street down there?" He walked closer to Steve.

If we want to catch her we should call the others. He turned back to the main screen in the middle of the room, where Jarvis was showing the CCTV footage. He pointed to the low corner of one of the screens. "See that there. I'd guess that that's her."

Steve took a quick look and confirmed Bruce's theory. It was the girl. Silent they had called her. He wondered what her real name was. And who that man was. "The person doesn't look like the agents of Heart, or those knew ones like Centipede. It's not their style. I wonder how many persons are after this girl. What's so special about her." He said.

"Well we know that Shield, Heart, probably the Police and that man are after her. I'd say we move fast so that she doesn't escape us again." They were making their way to the elevator when Tony screamed "Oh hey, now that's a catfight. Literally. Oh my gosh not in his face. Hey Clint, you can be happy that that cat went easy on you. Oh that must've hurt." He had been watching the kid through a display on his wrist.

"What do you mean catfight? And what about my face?" Clint asked.

"Not Important, but if we still want to catch Silent we should hurry up." He ran towards the window front, which opened up. His suit flew past everybody shortly after, and was operational halve a second later. Tony jumped out of the window and headed straight to where the man had abducted the girl.

Natasha turned to the others. "I think he isn't exaggerating with what he said, not after that exit. Far too little show."

"I don't always make a show!" Tony replied to that over the com's.  They other Avengers had to stop themselves from laughing and ran towards the emergency elevator, which was not for emergencies like fire, but provided the fastest way to get down and get gear. Once everybody had entered they started the freefall routine and opened up the lookers at the back to get their gear. They were basically making a free fall down and left the building seconds later, running after Tony. Securing their gear on the run.

They were halfway there when they heard Tony speak over the com's a little shaken. "Oh that. That's just disgusting. I think we need  Bruce here fast. The back of the man, it.., it looks like the cat mistook it for food."

"And the girl?" Natasha asked she was more worried about the girl, but was also getting annoyed by the people running after them, demanding autographs.

It took Tony a few seconds to answer, and then they still could barely make it out "she's gone, can't find her. She's wiped the cameras again." he wisphered.

Natasha took a deep breath. Silent was just a girl, who didn't even talk, but who still managed to escape them over and over again. She just hoped that that guy had some answers as to who she was. Or what her motivations where. When they reached Tony the first thing she noticed was the girl standing next to the man, close, but stiff and afraid of him. Not for him. She turned to look at the man, he was an average guy, someone who would could go by unnoticed easily. But his jacket was torn to shreds and soaked with blood. When she looked at his face she could see him smiling sadly. His lips were slightly torn, he had some cuts on his face, but it was not as bad as his back. She turned back to the girl. The man was in no condition to talk yet. He wouldn't be for some time, not till the pain medication Bruce had given him stopped working.  
She took on hand of the girl and asked her "Is he you're Father?"   
The girl turned to look at the guy, who smiled at her. But for a brief second Natasha could see his face change, and him starring at the girl. It was brief, but she noticed the girl stiffening immediately afterwards.  She answered shortly after "He adopted me. He has always been very nice to me."

Natasha eyed the girl, somehow she didn't believe the girl. She pointed at Tony "You see Ironman there? And next to him is Mr. Bruce, he's going to take very good care of your foster father. They are going to drive him to our home in an ambulance. It's not far from here, so I'll walk you there. if that's ok with you?"

The girl looked back at her foster father, but he the drugs had stated to take effect. He was smiling now, ignoring the girl, who nodded a second later.

 She pulled the girl away from the guy, who Ironman was now loading into the ambulance. They started walking back to the towers, taking the rout through the back entrance. She felt the girl loosen up a bit when the guy had left her sight. They continued to walk back for a minute before Natasha asked "What's your name, And what's his?"

The girl continued walking and answered quietly "My name is Sara, His Name is Mr. Jackson. What's yours?"

"Many call me the 'Black Widow', but you can call me Natasha. So who was he chasing before?"

"I'm not sure, but it could be that it was Marry Sue Pots. She got him arrested a few years back." A smile crept onto the face of the girl.

"How did she get him arrested?"

"She did something to his computer, they said it was illegal. They thought it was him!" Sara was getting exited.

"Why did she get him arrested?" Natasha asked. The girl stopped, her excitement vanishing. She looked up at her, her eyes wide open.

"Can you keep a secret?" she asked, starring at Natasha's face.

"I can" Natasha answered, causing the girl to frown.

"Everybody says that. They never do thought. Do you swear to keep it a secret?"

"I swear" Natasha answered, holding up her hand. The girl seemed to consider. "I guess that has to be enough."  
 She started walking again and continued quietly "Marry once said to me that she couldn't take it much longer. She said that she didn't want me to have to go through what she had to. Said that she had to make sure that when she couldn't protect me anymore I would still be safe, even if nobody believed what we would say." She stopped for a moment "I still don't understand, but two weeks later the police came and arrested him."  
Sara took another look at Natasha "He never hurt me, or treated me badly. But he made Marry unhappy. She would often sent me away when he was around. Treat me like a small child."  
She said bitterly and took another glance at Natasha "But lately he has been getting angry at me and I don't know why" . She looked back onto the ground.

They continued their walk back to the tower. Natasha kept a watchful eye on the girl. She had no Idea what to say to the girl. She let Sara's hand go and patted her back, not only for providing comfort, but also to check if she could feel any scars. She couldn't find any.  
Natasha's feet brought her to the tower on autopilot. Her mind was wondering about other things. So Silent's real name was Marry Sue Pots. Natasha decided to stick with Silent. She had probably been abused by Mr. Jackson, but nobody had believed her. She had managed to get him in jail by falsifying evidence. Mr. Jackson was free now. She believed Sara and after Silent's reaction to Clint she wanted that man behind bars. But they had nothing against him, no reason for an arrest.  Sara didn't show any signs of physical abuse, there was no legally valid record of Jacksons interaction with Silent, who, was missing. And the court had already 'wrongfully' convicted him once. It would be hard to make them re-reconsider Mr. Jackson.  It seemed as if it couldn't get any harder to do something legally against him.  Just as she had finished that depressing line of thought she heard Tony over the com, causing her to stop. "He's a cop." 

* * *

S _kye_

When she had finished shopping she had enough to last her and Loud for the next three weeks. So basically for the rest of her life Skye thought bitterly. She walked into a side alley at the back of the tower and climbed through one of the air vents. She wrapped the Grocery backs in her new clothes and pulled them through the vents behind here. When she reached the elevator shaft she put on the climbing gear and tied the groceries to the end of the rope. Climbing up was hard. Her body was in no shape for climbing, but somehow she managed to get to her floor. She sat onto a metal beam and toke a few deep breath. After she had rested for some time she started pulling the groceries up. About halfway up she secured the line and rested her arms.  She took a quick look around. Loud had escaped her backpack a when she had been two meters above ground and was now climbing through the metal structure, clearly enjoying himself. She continued to pull up the groceries, but shortly after she could hear the mechanical gear coming into motion. The cables started rattling and she could see the counterweight moving down. Loud freaked out and ran onto her shoulders, curling around her neck, his claws digging lightly into her skin. She pulled up the groceries faster and could barley avoid getting them squished by swinging them into the second elevator shaft.  Once the elevator had past Loud jumped off and continued jumping around, clearly trying to proof that he had not been scared. She waited for a few more seconds, until she was sure that the elevator was empty and continued to pull up the bags. It took her a few more minutes till she had pulled everything up. She secured the bags and took out her phone, glad that she hadn't lost it. She opened the elevator door and climbed through them. Once she was save on the other side, had secured the harness back on a support beam she and managed to convince Loud to join her by offering him a treat she closed the elevator doors. They walked to 'their' apartment and she unlocked the door. She placed the groceries on the kitchen table and put some into the fridge. She then took out a few bowls that were already in the cupboards and filled them up with water and cat food for Loud. She looked at the clothes she had bought and was about to put them on when she remembered the shower she had caught a glimpse of last night. She decided to take the opportunity and clean herself with _hot_ water . Something she hadn't been able to do since she had left Matt, the nice blind man who somehow had understood her even if she hadn't talked. She remembered how bad it had felt too leave him, but Heart had been getting to close, and even thought he had said that he could take care of himself she doubted that a blind man stood a chance against several trained agents with guns. She had taken of while he had been working, leaving a note in brail that explained why she had to leave, without endangering him with too much information. It had been fun to learn brail. It had taken her a while, but she had quickly learned how to identify the patterns. And Matt had been nice. She hoped he was ok.  
She got into the water and turned on the hot water, letting it run down her body. It felt so god. She could have continued it all day, but her tummy had decided to make itself known and had started to hurt badly. She finished the shower got into her ,wonderful, new clothes and made herself a nice dinner, something she hadn't had in a long time too. While she ate it, while looking at security footage from the tower. When she saw Mr. Jackson she nearly chocked, what the heck was he doing here? He also reminded her of something else and she quickly finished her dinner, her brain trying to think of a reason why the Avengers would have _him_ in their tower. Once she had finished she chased Loud with a bottle of antiseptic around the apartment. When she managed to get hold she tried to clean his wounds and somehow she managed to get it done. After half an hour. Once she was done cleaning the apartment up she turned her attention back to Mr. Jackson. She still had about two weeks to make sure that he wouldn't be able to hurt Sara. But she didn't know how. She turned the TV on and sat back into the couch considering possibilities of how she could manage to do keep Sara save, but non played out right.  
She was about to fall asleep when the newsreader started talking about a new hero, who cared about the small folk. But who didn't really cared about the law. They called her Jessica Jones. The mention that she ignored some of the laws sparked an idea in Skye. Maybe she could ask her for help? Getting her E-mail adress would be easy. She pulled out her Laptop and started searching. Once she had her e-mail address she opened her mail program, created a new e-mail and started typing:

_Dear Mrs. Jones_

_I've heard about what you did on the news, I wanted to ask for your help. I know that I my sound desperate, but I just want to keep someone else safe. Her name is Sara and she has been given into the care of Mr. Jackson. He may be a police officer, but if you take a look in his cellar he won't seem so clean anymore. Please help me make sure that Sara doesn't have to experience that I had. Mr. Jackson is currently being treated for some injuries, but once he is back up he will let his rage out on her. Please help me._

_Sincerely  
Silent_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment on whether you've liked it or what I should change. I have never been good with language so if you find any mistakes please let me know. Constructive criticism is appreciated.


	5. The Drunk and the Silent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessica Jones learns about Skye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fanfic was inspired by multiple fanfics about Kid Skye. Hope I add a new twist to that.
> 
> After the helpfull comments of 'thesheepofdestiny' I decided to rewrite it form the beginning.
> 
> I do not own Skye or any of the Avengers, or any other Marvel charakters.

_Jessica Jones_

Jessica Jones was sitting at her desk, staring at her laptop screen. It was getting annoying. People didn't come to her for her service as a private detective anymore, but expected her to solve their problems. For free. Why the fuck couldn't they just leave her alone. She wasn't a hero. She just wanted to be left alone. But people couldn't accept that and had started bothering her on her phone and through emails. She had switched her phone number and created a new e-mail account. The problem was that real clients couldn't contact her anymore. And now she was  starring a the E-mail in her inbox. Whoever had sent it had managed to find out her new email address. Why couldn't they let her rest in peace. Why couldn't they call the cops. And then saying she wanted to safe someone else. As if she  hadn't heard that before. And the name Silent, what a shitty name that was. It was most likely fake to. But she would have to deal with this person anyhow if she didn't want to have to change her mail address again. She started to type, asking why this person wouldn't just call the cops. She was not the fucking police. She tried to keep it as polite as possible, but it somehow ended up being insulting. She didn't mind and sent it anyway. She tried to track the mail, but whoever had sent her the e-mail was covering their tracks good. She grabbed the vodka bottle and drank. You'd have thought that after the media attention she'd have gotten more clients. But the world wasn't fair. Whoever came expected her to do something for free. How the heck was she supposed to live from 'free'. She didn't have any paying clients at the time so she started looking into the person anyway. She couldn't find a Silent online. Not a single trace of her. So she called Malcolm, who was working in the room next to her. When she asked him if he could find out anything about a girl named Silent he almost chocked.

"Who?"

"Silent. I got a mail asking for help. She had my private email address."

"She got youre private mail address?. Dosen't matter. I thought she was just a false storry. An insignificant rumor. Never thought she was real.    And stop drinking, Killgrave is dead."

"Killgrave maybe. But not the fucking nightmares. It still helps. I told you so already." She took another gulp "So who the fuck is this Silent?"

"She was a rumor. It was said that whenever she settled somewhere a while later people would come and give you money in exchange for information about her whereabouts.  And that if they found her they would reward you richly. She basically was every junkie's dream. Money for no work."

"You tell me that people dream about a person that comes running so that they can turn them in? That's fucking disgusting. Is there any more information about her?"

"It's said that she didn't talk, and there is always a cat with her. I could ask around?"

"Do that. And if some of them don't talk tell them _I_ want to know. If they still don't tell me."

* * *

_Skye_

Skye had watched the Avengers for the rest of the day. She could see that the Natasha cared about Sara, keeping her away from Mr. Jackson. She had listened in from time to time. The Avengers weren't going to keep him in the Tower, but also hadn't been able to put together a good case against him. Everything they had was substantial. They said that It would be easier if someone could get her, Silent, to stand before the court. It had been Captain America who had said that. She had almost laughed. He still believed in honest people. It wouldn't work. She remembered. She had tried to speak up once. They had ignored her, hadn't taken her seriously. And after that Mr. Jackson had kept her in the basement for the next week, providing only water and no food. When he finally let her out she had barely been able to walk. Her leg's hadn't been able to sustain her weight, because she had hung from a wooden beam most of the time, her arms taking most of the weight.  
The Captain and Tony had gotten into a fight as to what to do about him after that. Tony had said that they had to respect the law's, while Steve wanted to look him up in the tower. He wouldn't respect laws if they hurt innocent people. The worst thing was that they couldn't do anything to legally stop Mr. Jackson from taking Sara home with him in a few days. His wound's had healed too nicely. There really was no evidence, nothing to hold against him. Skye continued to watch the security footage. Shortly after eight O'clock, when she still hadn't received an answer form Jessica Jones she decided to start working on paying the 'debt' she owed the Avengers. She had heard them taking about Hydra and looking for some bases. So that's what she did, She started to hack Hydra and could quickly recognize parts of their wall that seemed to come from Heart. She continued coding till the sun set. In between she had taken her injection. Now only 24 ml were left. Eight days plus a week. She didn't have a lot of time left.  
Getting into Hydra had proven to be harder then she had expected. Their firewall was quite good. But because they had used some of the pieces of the firewall from Heart she was able to make progress. She continued to check her mailbox every few minutes, but Jessica Jones hadn't replied jet. She hoped she would. How else could she make sure that Sara was save? At midnight she went to bed, trying to sleep. But that was hard with a cat, who obviously didn't like to be looked inside an apartment, running around.

She woke up to the sound of a ventilator grill making contact with the ground. A cat was walking away from it, trying to make her believe that it had fallen out on its own.  She gave him a disappointed look and he just ran at her, purring. He probably was trying to distract her from what happened, but she couldn't resist patting him.  She had forgiven him already. She made Loud and herself breakfast and opened her Laptop. She almost punched the Keyboard when she read the reply from Jessica Jones. Going to the police? What a great idea. Why was it that nobody ever believed her? Even if she was always telling the truth. She had to do something to convince her that she wasn't lying. She was her only hope to help Sara. There were not a lot of  people who would be able to help, there weren't many people who could help her, and even less who might be willing to. She hoped that she could make Jessica Jones believe her. The only other person she knew who might beat up and scare policemen was daredevil. But she didn't know how to contact him. Matt had once said that if she ever needed the help of daredevil she should ask him. But he had done enough already and she needed to get help fast. It would probably take some time for Matt to contact the Daredevil. And he was busy at the moment anyway. Cleaning up after he and his friend Nelson had exposed Union Allied Construction. When she had met him he had told her about a whole number of trial dates that he had to go to. So that left her stuck with Jessica Jones. She had to somehow make her believe that she really needed her help. She started searching the net, she even hacked the NYPD and the foster system (again). But there was nothing that would incriminate him hard enough. There was almost no reference of him fostering her. Heart had erased her Identity. She packed everything she could find together into a small file. But it wasn't enough, not by a long shot. She had to give Jessica prove. And the only prove she had was o her back, covered by new scars. She pulled up her shirt and turned around a little bit, so that her exposed back was facing a security camera. She pulled the true, unmodified, video feed from the camera and used it to make a picture. The scares were clearly visible and could be easily differentiated from the surgical marks of Heart. She photoshoped any identification markers about her and her current whereabouts out of the picture and sent it, together with the file to Jessica Jones. She hoped this would be enough to convince her. Afterwards she turned back to hacking Hydra. It would probably take her another week or so. Meanwhile she could hear Loud running through the building. She hoped he wouldn't alarm the Avengers.

* * *

_Jessica Jones_

She had searched for some time to find anything about this Mr. Jackson, but there was not much information about him. He had been falsely accused of child pornography, but had been released some time ago. He had fostered before, but there was not much information regarding who he had fostered. He had recently taken in a girl named Sara, but there were no complaints against him. The guy was clean, except the false conviction. She hadn't heard back from Malcolm, but it just had been two hours. She opened another bottle of vodka. She needed to find out more about this Silent. But there was nothing, not a single trace. She could try to continue, but her hopes of finding a digital trace of her were nonexistent. She was about to close her laptop when she got a new E-mail. when she saw the pictures she almost choked.

Half an hour later she arrived at Trish Walkers apartment. When she entered her sisters face turned into disappointment.

"You said you wouldn't drink anymore. He's dead. He can't hurt you anymore"

 "Can't you all just shut up. He's still in here!" She tapped at her head..

"Then go to a psychiatrist. Get help. I can't seem to be able to do it! Now why did you come here?"

"Not to be screamed at." Jessica Jones toke a deep breath before she continued." I need you help."

"Of course you need my help. You know Killgrave is dead, you could just come for a personal visit from time to time." Trish answered but she sat down at a table anyway.

"It's not for me." Jessica pulled her laptop from her bag. She opened the last email with the picture attached to it. She turned the screen to her sister and sat down next to her. "It's for her."

"What?" Trish screamed. The picture showed the back of a young person, probably a child, covered in scars. Some were thick and straight others zigzagged across her back and a few other scars, more straight, precise and thinner, ran down the spine. Mostly.

"She said 'ignore the thin ones, they are not important. They happened after.' She contacted me, asked me to make sure that the person who did this would not be able to foster another child."

"Then for what do you need me?"

"I can't talk her. I don't know how. I haven't even been able to deal with my own nightmares. But she clearly needs help. I can beat the bastard up who did this, but I can't heal her scares. _I_ can't help her. Maybe you can."

"You know who did this to her?" Trish continued to stare at the screen.

"I know who she said did this. He's a policeman."

"A policeman!" Trish turned to Jessica "And what about those thin scars. They look surgical. What about them?"

"She didn't say, but it's rumored that there is a organization out there who is willing to pay some cash to get her. I'd wager that she got those scars from them. Malcolm is trying to find out more about her. Do you think you can arrange a  meeting with her? "

"I'm not sure. I can try. You take of that policeman. After that we can turn to whoever else did this" She pointed at the screen "to her. I just hope I can get her to trust me."

"just so that you know there are rumors about her. She supposedly doesn't talk. That's probably why everyone calls her Silent."

"Now that's just sad. Talking helps. If people stop talking.... I don't know ....She probably is mentally unstable. Maybe even a wrack already. I just hope she hasn't given into drugs." She paused for a moment "I'll try my best. You make sure you get that bastard."

"I will." Jessica pulled a flash drive out of her pocket handed it to Trish and closed her Laptop. "Everything I have is on here. I hope you can help her. Sister" And with that she left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment on whether you've liked it or what I should change. I have never been good with language so if you find any mistakes please let me know. Constructive criticism is appreciated.


	6. Talking about life choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye meets Jessica Jones and Trish walker.
> 
> !!! Warning: this chapter contains talk about suicide and death. If you don't like this topic, please don't read it.
> 
> -> I'm really aginst someone taking their own life, but I think that the topic suicide and death it is an important part of Skye's charackter in this story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fanfic was inspired by multiple fanfics about Kid Skye. Hope I add a new twist to that.
> 
> I do not own Skye or any of the Avengers, or any other Marvel charakters.

_Skye a week later_

She stared at the last of the clear chemicals. Her last hope of having someone reproduce it, maybe Tony, or Bruce. They could probably do it. But then they might sent her away, back into fostering. Or give her to shield. Heart would find her there. They had people everywhere. They had proven it to her. They had shown her the texts of the press releases of some of the most important people before they had been broadcasted. They had shown her other proof too. Once they had told her what would happen to the world market tomorrow. And the next day there had been the start of a small financial crises. She believed them when they said that they had people everywhere. She looked back at the small glass cylinder, from which a small metal needle extended. It still hold the chemical that could keep her alive. It still hold hope for life. But also the possibility of torture. She held the vial against the sun, looking at the way the sunbeams were reflected by the clear fluid. She sighed. She had no Idea what to do, so she pulled out the small container she had found in the closet and emptied the syringe into it. She looked it and cleaned the former. She took another look at her watch. She didn't know why, but she had agreed to meet this Trish Walker after she had contacted her through multiple emails, and they had talked on a chartroom that she had set up herself. They had agreed to meet in the fast-food restaurant at the back of the Avengers tower at ten O'clock. She still had about halve an hour. Loud was probably running around somewhere, but was surprisingly quiet. Too quiet. She started to search for him and found him in the elevator shaft, jumping around. She smiled and walked back to 'her' apartment. She put a baseball cap on and walked to the next mirror. She had cut her hair and cleaned herself up. And she had stored her good clothes into her backpack and pulled on her 'climbing' clothes. She couldn't show up at a restaurant, even a fast food restaurant, smeared with oil from the ventilation shafts. She turned to the mirror and inspected her appearance. She had never really minded how she looked but she couldn't attract too much attention. When she looked into the mirror she looked like any other child. Because her hair was short and she would be wearing boy clothes he could probably pass as a boy. She wore no resemblance to the Silent the Avengers were looking for.

Ten minutes later she reached her 'exit' and jumped down onto a pile of cardboards. She took a quick look around , and when she couldn't see anybody she pulled some of the cardboard boxes up to make a improvised changing cubicle. It would shelter her form any viewers. She had changed into her good clothes a minute later and walked towards the restaurant she would be meeting Trish at. She seemed like a nice person. Her family had taken Jessica in when she had been a child. They couldn't bee too bad. She took another look at her phone. She had hacked their financial accounts, as well as the NYPD to make sure that they wouldn't alarm anyone else. She took a quick look on her phone. There wasn't any abnormal police activity close by. And she could always transfer Trish's money to some charity organization. She took another look around. She hadn't gotten any alarm regarding Heart lately, but they could have found out that she could always keep track of their coms and had changed frequencies. But there was nobody she could see who stood out suspiciously. She turned her line of thought back to the conversation she would have tonight. She had to make sure that they would protect Sara. Maybe she could even get them to adopt her.

* * *

_Jessica Jones, Trish Walker_

"you think she will turn up?"

"Calm down Trish. She will. She hasn't jet broken any of her promises. She may be doing some things that are illegal, but she has her own code of honor. Honestly what's up?"

"I don't know what to expect. What is she doing? Where is she currently living? I have no idea what will happen, how she will react to personal contact. We may have talked in the Internet, but never anything substantial."

"So? It can't be worse than when you talked to me after Killgrave."

"But she's just a child. She has suffered god knows what." she glanced at her watch "You really think she will come?"

"Chill. For god's sake chill. She still has ten minutes."

They heard the door opening and turned around, like they had done so many times already. But it was just another boy. Yet there was something off about him. So They continued to watch him out of the corners of their eyes. He took a quick glance around, looked on his Smartphone and then started walking towards them. He stopped before their table and put down his phone and pulled another old one out of his pocket. He started typing, and some letters appeared on the phone he had put on the Table.

_Hello. I hope I'm not too late. It's nice to finally meet you._

"You are silent?" Trish asked

 _Yes I am._ Silent pointed at her hair _traveling around as a boy is easier and makes for a good cover._

Trish nodded and pointed at the seat next to her "Take a seat. If you want something let us know."

 _Ok. Maybe a burger and some fries._ She waited for a second and seemed to be considering something. She then pulled up a website on her phone.

_I have direct access to your finances. Should you have told ore tell someone about this meeting, or me, I will make sure that you won't find your money again._

Trish was baffled. This kid was just Twelve, but had found a way to make sure that they wouldn't talk to anyone about her. She grinned at Jessica.

"You're smart. I promise I won't tell anyone about you."

_Ok. ....I wanted to ask if you would take care of Sara. She's a good kid._

"We will. I'll try to adopt her. But there has been a lot of crazy shit happening the last few month. I don't know if it would really be the best decision." Trish replied.

_Just make sure she doesn't have to live with him. Make sure she's safe. Someone has to._

"And why not you?" Jessica Jones asked.

_Because... It's not important. It'll be over soon anyway._

"What will be over?" Jessica asked. She could see the girl cringe. She had sad something that she didn't want to. But something that seemed important. Why would what be over soon?

_Nothing. Make sure you take care of everything before the week is over. In six days I'll erase him from the Internet. He won't have an identity anymore after that. Make sure that you get to him before then._

Jessica looked at her sister. they both knew that the girl was hiding something. the girl was about to leave when Trish grabbed her and motioned her to sit back down.

"I'll help. under one condition. You'll tell us about yourself. I want to know who I'm working with." Trish said. Jessica could see the girl deciding, weighting her options. She almost thought the girl would just storm out, but then she sat down. Looking down to the ground.

_You'll have to promise me you won't try to save me. You would think you would be help me, but you would just prolong the running, and make my life more painful. I'm beyond saving._

"Why are you beyond saving. Why do you need to be saved?" Trish asked.

_Promise me. Swear it._

Jessica looked at the girl. What was she hiding. Why shouldn't they help her? She reached out and shock hands with the girl. "I swear". Her sister did the same.  
As a response Silent pulled a small container and a syringe out of her backpack. She put them on the table and rolled up her sleeve left sleeve.

 _That's why_ She pointed at a small bulb on her left forearm _It will kill me in a week._ She pointed at the vial _that has kept me alive for the last three years. It's the last dose. It will prolong my life for one more day._

Jessica gasped. She could see Trish doing the same. This girl was talking about her life as if dying was nothing. She had talked about it calmly, almost scientifically. Jessica was getting angry, frustrated, sad. Why did a girl so young had to go through something like this . Alone. She had at least been older. And she had survived. Scared yes, but alive. This girl was talking about death. She really wanted to hit someone now to get rid of the feelings inside her. What had those people done to her? She looked back at the vial. She had said one week without.  
"You could give it to a lab. Maybe they could reproduce it in a week." She said and reached out to comfort this girl. Maybe she talked about death as if she had accepted it, but she couldn't help herself. She had to do something to make this girl feel better. But silent just brushed her off.

_Maybe. Tony stark could probably do it. But then I would have to continue running, hiding. It's not fun._

Jessica cut her off "I ran before. even cut my nice sister here out of my life. But I stopped. I defeated the guy who I was running from. You can do the same. You are young."  Silent turned to face her. She really was young. But now she had locked eyes with her. She saw them now. Not the organ, not the eyeballs, but the way someone looks at the world. Her eyes looked old. Too old for a twelve year old. Far too old. She should be living, enjoying life. But she wasn't. And there was so much pain so much knowledge in those eyes. It didn't belong there. It shouldn't be in those eyes. They continued looking at each other. She felt a weight on her shoulders increase. Those eyes reminded her of herself. After the accident. But she had had it far better. She could feel tears starting to build. Why the fuck was she starting to cry? This girl before her wasn't. She was supposed to be strong. She was the adult. She was the strong one. She had the superpowers. She had to shut her eyes. She had to break the contact. She couldn't bear it. What had happened to this girl? What had left her like this?

Silent looked down on her tablet and started typing.

_Defeat a guy, maybe. But not a organization. Not Heart. I can't hide from them my whole live. I'm lucky I managed this long. And I'd rather die painlessly and a few years earlier that having to live in pain, mind numbing pain, and to be imprisoned for the rest of my life._

"I could help you. Tell everyone about Heart. Tell your story. I told you I'm working on a radio station." Trish said.

_And you would be dead five minutes after you mentioned Heart. You don't understand. They are EVERYWHERE. You couldn't escape them. Neither can I._

"Then how are you here now?" Jessica asked. How, Why it didn't matter. What mattered  was Who. Who had done this to her? Who had been behind it? But she couldn't bring herself to ask.

_Because somehow I managed to escape once. I won't be able to repeat it._

"Then let us protect you. Seek help, ask the Avengers." Trish said

_As I said. They are everywhere. You couldn't protect me for long. Sooner or later they would get me. Even if they would have to kill you._

"Then tell us who did this. Let us brig the fight to them." Like they had with Killgrave. She had been running for weeks, months even. But it had only stopped after they had taken the fight to him. Maybe they could still save this girl. They had to somehow.

_That won't work they are too big. They work with Hydra, they probably are part of Hydra and even shield hasn't managed to win against them. I'll post the files with everything I know online. After I die. There is no reason to get yourself killed over me. It's the best I can do._

"But if you're dead you can't go back. Maybe you could have lived a life. Maybe someone can stop them!"  She was getting more edgy with the second. They had to be able to do something. She just couldn't let this girl throw her life away.

_I told you already. There is nothing anyone can do._

"And what do you think happens after you die?" Trish asked. Jessica just stared at her. Had her sister already accepted the girl's death?.

_I've stopped believing in heaven and hell a long time ago. And even if there is a hell it can't be worse then what they did._

"So what do you think will happen when you die? Won't people miss you, wont you're friends miss you?"

_I have nobody who is going to miss me. There has never been anyone in this world who cared. As for death. I imagine it like sleep._

"But you won't wake up. you can't just throw your life away like that. You only live once!" Trish continued to ask.

_If you could choose between years of suffering and years of sleeping, which would you choose?_

"I'd chose to live in hopes of getting free. I almost did it once, killed myself, when _he_ controlled me. But I didn't and now he's dead." Jessica answered, pushing back memories with another shot of vodka.  This girl should life, she shouldn't have to think about death.

_Then you were lucky. I have an organization after me. I won't be able to escape again._

Jessica could see her shift, turning to her sister. Silent started typing again.

_Take care of Sara from me. Make sure she's safe._

Then she turned to Jessica. She could barley hold herself together when those impossibly eyes looked at her.

_Make sure Mr. Jackson doesn't forget what he did. Thank you for the food.....And don't try to follow me._

 And with that the girl grabbed her remaining belongings and walked out of the restaurant. When she opened the door she looked back at them one more time. Jessica could only stare at her. She could see the light from a nearby building reflected on a small trail of water running over the girls cheek. A silent tear, not meant to be seen, dripping down over the girls face. She couldn't take it much longer and downed her glass of vodka. Afterwards she could only look at the door, swinging back and forth after the girl had left. The girl who had given up hope. The girl that was going to die. The girl that had only shed a tear at the end.

* * *

_Natasha_

She didn't know why she had chosen running over the rooftops tonight, instead of training in Starks gym, but it was worth it. The cold wind brushing against her face, the building gaps she so easily crossed. She had made a sport of following random persons around, for no reason whatsoever and trying to stay hidden, while being as close as possible to them. The closest she had ever managed had been a few meters. It was a nice, relaxing exercise, while providing an interesting insight into what normal people were doing. Tonight she was following two sisters around. They were walking towards a small fast food restaurant, and hadn't noticed her walking over the rooftops above them for the last two or three kilometers or so. The one with the dark brown hair had looked back over her shoulders a few times, but didn't seem to have noticed her. She saw them enter and decided on whether to continue her 'surveillance' or not. She decided against and stated roaming the streets, but some nagging feeling about those two seemed to pull her back to the restaurant constantly. In the end she quickly changed into more normal clothes, tugged her hair back and walked into the fast-food place, ordered the healthiest thing she could find. Honestly, what were normal people eating? They really didn't care about a healthy, balanced food! She walked to the booth behind the two and sat down. luckily there was no one there, and nobody had noticed her so far. She could hear them talking about meeting someone, but couldn't make head or tails about of who they were talking about. She constantly checked the entrance, by looking into a makeup mirror. After another ten minutes had past and the blond one, Trish, was getting twitchy she almost decided to leave again. But the she saw a child enter the restaurant alone. She didn't recognize him at first. Or was it a girl? Probably a girl, dressed as a boy. She was walking towards her. No them. Natasha took another look in the makeup mirror. There was something familiar about this girl, she just couldn't make out what. After the girl sat down she pulled a phone out of her pocket and stated typing. What was that for? Two adults meet in a fast-food restaurant with a kid that they obviously haven't seen before, and she doesn't even talk. _Talk_ that was the word that triggered her memory. The girl was Silent. She had to know who she was talking to. What they were talking about. The problem was that she could only hear one side of the conversation. She couldn't hear what the girl was saying. She put on her jacket and stated to walk out of the restaurant. When she passed them she pressed down on a button and a small, almost invisible arrow with a miniature cam from stark stuck from the ceiling. Nobody had noticed her do it. Once outside she took the quickest route up to the top of the building. There she laid down and pulled out her stark phone. she activated the audio stream on her  earplugs and zoomed in on the cell phone laying on the table. The first words she read almost stopped her heart. _It will kill me._ She almost dropped the phone. she zoomed back out and could only recognize a small flicker of Silent's eyes. Otherwise there was no reaction to what she had just said. She continued to listen to the conversation till it ended. Her heart was breaking, the one people said she didn't have. It was slowly falling to pieces. Getting destroyed more and more with each word the girl said. At the end some things became clear. She had to get the chemical to Tony, or better even Bruce. And she had to protect this girl. This girl that reminded her of herself, or Clint. This girl that showed so much potential, hell she had hacked Stark, but who was going to die to early. Who hadn't had anyone to look out for her, to be there for her, and who now pushed everyone away to protect them.  
When the girl left the building Natasha decided o follow her through the streets. The further the girl walked the more confused she became. She was actually walking towards the avengers tower, not directly, like she was trying to shake a tail, but definitively towards their base. She now knew the reasons for the way this girl was acting, but she had no idea what Silent was really doing. First she hacked them, then she saved them. Then she was hiding from them, now she was walking towards them. What was going on in that crazy head of hers.  She followed Silent, after a few more turns a cat jumped over her shoulder. Natasha took out her spyglasses and could see the cat looking at her. A moment later the girl increased her speed, she wasn't running yet, but was trying her best to shake Natasha. At some point she turned into a small, dim lit side alley. It was a dead end. Natasha jumped down and blocked the girls way out. She turned around.

"Stop where you are. Let us help you!" Natasha said. T

he girl took out a pencil and some paper, walked over towards the wall and started writing.

_You can't help me. Just leave me in peace. I'm sorry for what I did. You'll understand soon._

"We can help you. We can protect you. We managed to defeat an Alien Invasion. We can keep you save."Silent's face turned to a grin. she shook her head.

_They were pretty obvious, weren't they. The people from Heart don't fly around, looking blue, and shoot at everything that moves._

"But there we had to protect everyone. You are only one person. We can protect you!"

_I'm a child. how long will you be able, be allowed to keep me around? How long are you willing to spent time protecting me that you could spent protecting the world?_

"There's always Shield. They can protect you!" Natasha exclaimed. But the girl just shook her head.

_They can't they don't exist._

"Shield does exist, They protect people like you! And I can keep in contact." This time the girl just shook her head, sadly.  Natasha was getting annoyed. The conversation wasn't getting nowhere. She didn't even write anything new down. Natasha would have to get her in by force. She couldn't convince her. That much was getting clear. She was about to call the other avengers when she heard a mechanical voice speaking in her earplugs.

'Don't even bother. just let me go!'

Natasha turned looked at the girl. She was typing something down on her phone. She would have to act quickly. Silent had managed to get away before. She couldn't let that happen again. For the sake of the girl, and for the sake of Nick Fury's mood. She was about to shot the girl with a tranquilizer bolt when her earplugs went crazy. Giving of loud a high pitched noise, like a flash grenade, effectively stunning her for a few seconds. That was all the time the girl needed to get past her and back into the crowds on the street. The only good thing was that Natasha had managed to grab her backpack, which she was now holding in her right hand. At least Bruce, or Tony would be able to recreate the life prolonging substance the girl needed. After her head stopped hurting Natasha made her way back to the Avengers tower. A few pages in her hand, The pages the girl had written on. The last one said  
_I'm sorry_

* * *

_Avengers tower next morning_

They were sitting in the common room, slightly depressed. And tired. Natasha had woken them up after she had returned to the Tower and told them about her encounter with Silent. They had been too tired to yell at her. When she had told them about Silent's oncoming death Clint had run out of the room, clearly needing to talk to someone, while Steve had slammed his hand down on the table, almost breaking it and cursed Heart in a language he himself would normally have warned people not to use. Tony had joined in on his outburst. Bruce had fallen into the couch and had shaken his head, saying "the poor girl, the poor girl" Natasha had wondered how he had kept the green guy from appearing. After they had calmed down Natasha had handed the phone that was in the backpack over to Stark, but there had been nothing important on it. She had also given the vial with the liquid to Bruce, who had taken it and had vanished in his lab immediately after receiving it.  After that they had all gone to bed, but Natasha hadn't been able to sleep. She doubted the others would be able too.  
They were all a bit down, they had been even before she had talked to them. She knew why. The whole week before they had been searching for the girl, but hadn't been able to find out anything important about her. They had found some more of her hacks, which Tony had immediately modified and added to his own collection of hacking tools, even thought he didn't want to admit he did, because he couldn't come to terms with the idea that there was someone almost as good as he was. But other than that they hadn't been able to find any trace that held value. The only information they had gotten from Mr. Jackson had been her name and that she had been living at St. Agnes. But all of her files had been deleted. When  he had told them her name Tony had laughed. "Even Silent is better than that. Marry sue Pots, the world must really hate her." But that had been almost all of the information that they had been able to find. And even worse there had been nothing to get there mind of things. Not an attack, not a single new information on any terrorist organization. Nothing. Normally they had to deal with stuff like that far to regularly, but now when they needed to fight against something real there was nothing there. They had had to release Mr. Jackson and Sara the day before.  Tony had almost had to fight Steve and Natasha to escort him outside. They hadn't wanted to let him go and Natasha had almost locked Sara in her room to make sure that she didn't need to leaf. In the end they had agreed to let them go, but had convinced Bruce to implant a small chip that would measure Sara's vital signs, as well as pain responses. It had been the best that they had been able to do. It probably was worth more than Mr. Jackson's yearly salary, but Tony had enough money.  
They continued to talk to each other about nothing substantial. It was depressing if you weren't able to find anything out about someone after a week of extensive looking, and worse, that she had slipped though their fingers again. The only other real clue that they had been able to dig up was a redacted Shield file that, no surprise, Furry told them was unimportant and not necessary.

The next morning the Avengers had gathered in the common room again.  
The mood was almost as dark as it probably was in the center of a black hole, when suddenly Tony sighed "I didn't thought he would be that stupid. I honestly hadn't expected him back till next week. Dick."

"Language" Steve responded and continued "Who is back?"

"Mr. ICanGetAwayWithItAll. Who do you think. And he  brought some of his friends from the NYPD. I have no idea what he wants."

A second later they could hear the doorbell going off.

"Should we call them up?" Natasha asked.

"Nah, lest meet them downstairs. I don't want that slimebag up here." Clint responded.

"What do you think he wants?" Bruce asked. "Sara's vitals have been good for the last day, so it probably isn't about her." He added.

"I have no fucking clue, maybe he's here for Silent. He _had_ fostered her before." Tony answered.

"Tony Language!" someone said, probably Steve. They continued walking towards the elevator, too tried to ask any more questions. They entered the elevator and started descending. They were about halfway down when Steve shouted "Hey has anyone else heard that?"

"What that, you mean the elevator" Clint said. "I've heard 'that' since it started descending."

"Not that, the noise just now. Sounded like a cat." Natasha responded to Steve.

"A cat? It's probably just the elevator. Both of you Superhumans may have super senses, but there is no way that there is a cat in the tower. And not this far up." Tony laughed.

"Maybe. But it sounded like a cat didn't it." Steve said to Natasha, she nodded.

They still continued to go down, they could look into the matter of the 'cat' later. Now they had to meet Mr. Jackson before he busted through the glass doors.  
Natasha stopped thinking about the 'cat' sounds and started to think about the guy waiting at the front door. Why had he brought the police, and why was he back so soon. And for what? To get Silent back? Natasha had no Idea. But she wouldn't sent Silent back to him. Not even if she knew where the girl was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment on whether you've liked it or what I should change. I have never been good with language so if you find any mistakes please let me know. Constructive criticism is appreciated.


	7. Policemen problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has problems with Mr. Jackson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own Skye or any of the Avengers, or any other Marvel charakters.

  _The Avengers  
_

When they reached the bottom Natasha had to pull herself together. She was at the verge of falling asleep, she had stayed awake the last week almost only due to coffee. Even if she had some super human abilities, she still needed to sleep. She just hoped that this jerk, Jackson, wouldn't cause too much trouble.  
They exited the building and greeted the man at the front door. Natasha really wanted to wipe the smug smile of his face with the back of her hand. What was _he_ so happy about?

"Hello Stark, Mrs. Romanov, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Barton and Mr. Banner. It's nice to see you again. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, as you seem to be concerned for her, but the girl who did this" he pointed at his face "to me is a wanted criminal. She was convicted of falsifying evidence, robbery and is the main suspect in a double homicide and a missing persons case. Because of recent events the investigation has been reopened and I was put in charge. We would like to ask whether or not you know anything about her you haven't told me already. We can do so outside, with the news cameras around, or someplace in your tower."

"As far as I know it was a cat who did that" Steve pointed at Mr. Jacksons face "not a girl. And that's all we know. What makes you think we know anything else about her?" Steve asked, stepping towards Mr. Jackson.

"Because you asked questions about her? You know you still have to follow the law, you're not above it. Even if you are the _Avengers._ Now if you don't tell me the truth I'll arrest you for hindering a police investigation."

Natasha had to force herself not punch him, or laugh out loud. She couldn't stand that self-righteous expression he was wearing on his face, especially when he was currently facing Captain America. _Captain America_ of all persons. But it would give the press a field day if she hit him in the face, even if they only continued to argue out here much longer. She could also see that Tony was getting nervous, because it was quite likely that he would end up having to smooth over any incident, that might happen, in the media. "Let's talk about this inside."

They walked into the elevator, followed by their _guest_ and four more policemen. It was a bit crowded, and Natasha ended up standing behind  Mr. Jackson. She couldn't help herself and whispered, maybe growled, in his ear, to quiet for the others to hear or notice "If you hurt Sara, or Silent....". She could feel his body tense up, his previous posture of 'I am always correct' vanishing. It was fun to see this man cringe. But when they left the elevator he had regained his composure again. _And_ that annoying smile was back on his face.  That fu**ing smile.

Mr. Jackson walked over to the table and seated himself, as if he owned the place. "As I already asked you before, what do you know about Mary Sue Pots? Do you know her current whereabouts? Have you seen her in the last days?" He looked at them, as if he was trying to intimidate them! Natasha had to stop herself from laughing again. Trying to intimidate the Avengers! That man's ego rivaled Stark's, maybe it was even bigger than his. She hadn't thought that _that_ was possible. But in contrast to Stark that man was probably the most ignorant one she had ever met. He was like a balloon. At least Tony had the skills to back his ego up.  
She turned to face Mr. Jackson "I haven't seen her, have you?" she looked at the other Avengers, who shook their heads. She turned back to Mr. Jackson and could see that the policemen he had brought with him were getting quite uncomfortable standing this close to the her team. Mr. Jackson himself was to ignorant to accept the fact that they were more powerful even if he had the laws and media behind him. Which he hadn't. The other policemen obviously knew that and didn't seem to  like challenging them. Maybe she could ask them some questions about Silent, see if they knew anything. Pick them for information. Doing something useful.  
"So how would you describe this Mary Sue Pots. It might help if we knew how she behaved. It would make it easier for any of us to spot her then. Did any of you knew her?"

The four policemen all nodded in response. She motioned the first one to speak. "Well. As far as I can remember she was a happy kid, talked a lot. Was dam curious. Never stopped asking questions. And she was smart." He was interrupted by the third one before he could finish. "I only arrived at the precinct three weeks before Mr. Jackson stopped fostering her. She didn't seem that talkative then. Might be that I'm mixing her up with someone else, but whenever I last saw her she didn't really talk much. If she did it was mostly to apologize."

"Well I too remember her as a quiet child. She probably slowly stopped asking about everything. Grew up."

Natasha turned to the others. Living so close to each other they all had gained some ability to read their partners, well almost all of them, except of Tony. She could see the questioning glances of Bruce, Clint as well as the ones of Steve. The girl hadn't always been mute! So what stopped her from speaking if it hadn't been Mr. Jackson. What had Heart done to her. Was it physical or emotional trauma that had caused her to lose the ability to speak. And even thought the girl's state wasn't all Mr. Jacksons fault what had really been going on when she had been living with him. What had he done to her. Or better, how bad had the abuse been from him and from Heart? She had to stop herself, again, from punching him in the face, ripping open some of the stitches of the wounds that that cat had left. Bruce had done a far too good job on them. This man didn't deserve those stitches. He deserved the scars, for the scars that he had left on the girl, no matter what he had done, he had done something to make her grow quiet. No normal kid grows quiet without a reason. Not in a few month. She really, really wanted to punch him. The other Avengers probably wouldn't even try to stop her, but she could almost hear how Tony would groan about how much the press would cost to smooth over that incident.

"So she was still talking the last time you saw her?" Steve asked. Interrupting Natasha's line of thought. Which was probably a good thing for Mr. Jackson.

"Yes, she was. Maybe not much but she was." One of the policemen confirmed.

"Was there anything else that you can tell us about her from the last time you saw her? Was she good with computers?" Steve continued to ask.

"How do _you_ know that she was good with computers? I never told you, and you had no legal way of knowing! You can't access the evidence on her case." Mr. Jackson asked. He seemed to be getting impatient.

"We didn't know. We assumed. And then there's this one thing you know. We're the Avengers." Clint interrupted him. Saying this as if he was telling a child something obvious.

"And you are not above the Law. There are regulations!"

"And there is Shield. Which basically trumps all other federal agencies."

"But you still need a warrant!"

"No. You need Shield level one or higher. And would you please answer Mr. Rogers question!" Bruce Intervened.

"And why should I tell you anything. You won't tell me anything. I _will_ charge you with obstruction!"

"And we could say that this instigation is now of interest to Shield, which would make this case too sensitive for a NYPD officer. And then _we_ could charge _you_ with obstruction!" Tony answered. "In fact lest just do that!"

"No wait... You can't. This is _my_ case! And we haven't gotten anything else either."

"So there is really not a single other thing?" Natasha him in a tone which, from anyone else might not be scary, but from her it was terrifying. She slowly stepped towards Mr. Jackson. "Nothing else that could prove helpful to us?" She liked how the man tried to worm himself away from her. How he grew more and more uncomfortable under her gaze. How he seemed to be bolted to the floor. How he wasn't able to move from his place to paralyzed from fear, but still tried to get as far away from her as possible, while the other police officers had  taken a step back.

"No there is not. But you should know that that girl is a psychopath. The bodies of her last foster parents were found molten to the kitchen table. The whole house had been burned to the ground. Her fingerprints were found burnt into a canister that had held a fire accelerant, as well as on a lighter. The skulls of her foster parents had been shattered to pieces, while the flesh had been partially liquefied by the heat. You should see the pictures. It wasn't pretty. And on the front lawn was blood from her foster sister, and their car was missing. She may not be allowed to drive, but it is likely  that she was able to drive anyway."

"And a what, 12 year old, is supposed to have done all that?" Clint asked sarcastically.

"She could have snapped. The foster system is known for harboring the most troubled of children. Maybe she just went full psycho on them. She could have drugged them and then bashed in their heads with a baseball bat."

"Maybe you should try to follow some other leads. Maybe she was taken by someone."

"And who would go through all this trouble to get her? Why kill her foster parents and kidnap her sister? She was a nobody. Nobody cared about here. And if someone was after a nobody they would just pull one from the streets. This was too much work for someone so insignificant."

"And you are still trying to catch this insignificant person. I think we've heard enough. I trust that you can find your way out by yourself." Steve ended the conversation. He had learned enough. Mr. Jackson tried to argue against leaving, but Steve cut him off  with a gesture of his hand.

A few minutes later the policemen had left. Taking the hotheaded Mr. Jackson with them.

"What a jerk" Clint commented when the door closed behind them.

"Agreed. Is there really nothing we can charge him with?" Natasha asked. There had to be something.

"No nothing.  He's clean. Hasn't even got a parking ticket." Tony answered.

"Sadly public image rarely represent the truth. People like to only look at the facades others build up. Not behind them. The truth really is rarely pretty. That isn't different from the 1940s" Steve commented.

"Maybe the girl has prove of his abuse. What do we have on her? And what else can we do now?" Natasha asked, breaking the silence. They had to find this girl. They had to get Mr. Jackson behind bars. They had to... They had to do so much. It was frustrating. Hitting strongholds of terrorist was a lot easier. No politics. Just hit them whenever they popped up. But this situation. Even if it was small, was weighting harder and harder on her mind. Harder than any other criminal organization she could think of had ever done. Probably because Silent reminded her of herself.

"I still can't trace her hacks to her current location, but there seems to be a new person hacking Shield servers. As well as executing hacks against servers which seem to belong to Heart, or similar other criminal organizations. And the viruses of this new person carry the same  signature as the one Silent used to hack Jarvis." Tony answered.

"So she is hacking all those organizations? " Clint asked.

"It seems that way. But I can't imagine why she would go through the trouble of hacking them if she is going to die anyway."

"About that. Has anyone heard anything from Bruce. He is always in his lab." Natasha interrupted.

"No I haven't heard from him. He is probably working on duplicating that chemical you gave us. I wonder what takes him so long. It can't that complicated. I didn't design it." Tony answered.

"Then maybe you should help him. The girl has six days left to life and you are currently downing your second glass of scotch." Natasha replied. It was almost like Tony didn't give a shit, or maybe it was because he gave too much of a shit and couldn't deal with it.

"Yeah yeah. mum. I'm going already." Tony answered. he turned to the next screen "Jarvis. Tell everyone were going to have a meeting about Silent tomorrow in the morning at 0800. Furry is going to be there."

"Furry?" Natasha asked.

"Yeah. He was nice enough to let us know in advance. Said he would meet us at 0900. Thought we should be there before him."

"Seriously Tony. He'll be there before us anyway." Clint commented

"One can try."

"One can dream."

"One can dream of Trying. I'll be helping Bruce. And you go, go and shoot some sticks into circles. " Tony replied and left to go help Bruce.

* * *

_Trish Walker_

Trish was walking around the living room nervously. She and Jessica had tried to get some sleep after the talk with the girl, the main word being _tried_. Jessica had gone to do some "Private Investigation" which probably consisted of scaring street thugs for their life in hope of getting any Information about Silent. Since Trish hadn't heard from her she probably hadn't gotten any clues yet. Trish was meanwhile trying to keep up their promise and had asked a Jeri Hogarth, who like Jessica had said hadn't jet redeemed herself, for help in adopting Sarah. She was waiting for a call back from her with new information regarding Mr. Jacksons status as Sarah's legal guardian, but didn't know what to do with herself. She circled the kitchen table once more and sat down at the computer. Maybe she could dig up some dirt on Mr. Jackson that maybe was not legally important, but would make for good gossip. People so loved to hear that in the radio. And if Mr. Jackson cared at all about his reputation he would give into her demands. Especially when people had just come over the Kilgrave debacle and would need a new scapegoat to blame everything on. She opened up her browser and started researching.  
An hour later she still hadn't been able to get any dirt on him. There was nothing on him and she had searched through almost all the social networks she knew. It was frustrating. There was nothing on him. At least nothing _against_ him. All she could find were news reports about him. The perfect cop, the cop that helped a little girl. The only bad news were the one about his arrest for possession and receipt of child pornographic material. The bad thing about those bad news was that the evidence all turned out to be faked and that because of that there had been a lot of news about the charges being dropped completely. And him being reinstated at the police. And then there were the list about promotions he had gotten before his 'false' arrest. She would have started to doubt Silent's accusation if it weren't for her mother and her own experience.  She again started looking into his arrest, hoping to find some dirt, which had been lurking in the background and gone unnoticed from anyone else. His former foster child fell sparked her interest and she started tracing her. _Mary Sue Potts poor child who would give someone a name like that?_ She continued searching and managed to get the name of the orphanage Mary stayed in. _Saint Agnes Orphanage of course. Only nuns would give a child such a name._ She shook her head. As if the world wasn't cruel enough. Wondering whether or not Silent was this Mary Sue Potts she stood up to get another glass of scotch, when suddenly her phone went off. It was an alarm she had created. Alerting her off any news regarding Mr. Jackson. She looked at her screen and started laughing. Just what she needed to get the media's attention focused onto him.. She hoped that Jessica had the same luck.

* * *

Jessica

Jessica was searching another alley of drunks and addicts for information. She had gotten this address along with some others from Malcolm. The last ones hadn't really turned up anything new. She looked for the sanest guy she could find. Sadly they _all_ seemed to be pretty much wasted. _Why can't they respect their limits. I never sunk this low and I drunk a lot. Or drink whatever._ She walked over to the guy with the least beer bottles, who wasn't starring into empty space like a person on drugs. After considering to shout at this guy to get his attention or to kick him, she feared he would just fall over, She decided to lift him up. A moment later she had him dangling from of the wall, his shirt being pinned onto the bricks behind him by her hand, while his legs were to weak to hold him upright.

"What do youh wan _Bitch_ " he spit in her face, seemingly unsurprised about his current position.

"I want information. And don't bark at me like a dog. Or I may just empty out this bottle!" She started to turn a bottle of beer that had been standing besides the guy over until some of the liquid started to spill onto the ground. _That_ got the guys attention.

"ok Ok. I ll tell youh anythingh youh wahna nowh." he lolled.

"Just tell me about a girl named Silent. What have you heard about her?"

"Oh she. Damm Id be lucky if i wouhld see her. They doubhled the rewahrd yesterday. All the beer one can imagine." He replied. A dreamy smile forming on his face.

"Any news as to where she might be?"

"Supposedly neahr that averngers thing. That high one."

"The Tower?"

"Oh jeah. The Tower. somwhere there."

"And what about her pursuers."

"No Ideah. But they offer money. Money and beer. So much beer." He seemed to lose himself in his dream.  
Jessica had gotten all that this guy was going to give her so she loosened her hold on his shirt. He stood there, leaning against the wall, for two more seconds, before crashing into the ground. She only noticed the bottle she was still holding after she had walked for a few meters and threw it blindly back behind her. Somehow it hit the target, which could be clearly heard by the "I'll get you for that. Bitch".  The guy managed, Jessica had no idea how, to get up. But before he had walked one step he face-planted himself onto the ground, having stumbled over his feet. "Idiots. They never learn." was Jessica's only comment as she walked into a small side alley.

The first thing she noticed was that the alley was completely empty. Except for the occasional rats running between the trash bins. The next thing she saw was that it wasn't completely empty. but that there had been someone hiding behind one of those trashcans. As Jessica walked closer she recognized the person. _Not her. Why did it have to be her. It was like she had said. Idiots never learn._

* * *

_Skye_

Skye was starring on her screen. She had known that Shield had been infiltrated, the people from Heart had told her, after the first time they had tried to escape. Ashley. The last person she had spoken to. At the thought of her she felt as if her heart was being squeezed to fit into a walnut shell. She pushed the thought away. Before the emotions that were always trailing those memories paralyzed her. Like they had always done the first week after...  
She waved her hand, trying to shoo away those memories, which were bothering her like a swarm of mosquitoes. She remembered how they had shown her pictures and files confirming that Heart had undercover agents. Letting images run on a screen that was mounted in her room while they deprived her of food and woke her back up with teasers as soon as she fell asleep.  
But this was the first time she had managed to get real evidence. Up till now there had always been this hope that maybe they were lying. Or that maybe would still be able to get clean. This hope had been a small thing. Like a match that had flickering in the back of her mind. It may not have been big, but it had been something. It had made the difference between a clouded night sky and a room without windows. Both were dark, but in the first you were still thankful for being able to see. And now that piece of hope, no matter how small it might have been, was gone. And there was nothing there. She fell into the chair, shrinking together as the reality of her situation slowly started to sink in. Up till now she had managed to convince herself that dying was going to be easy. There was no one left who cared for her. No one she would miss. It wouldn't matter whether she lived or died and the world was probably better off without her anyway. But now her survival instincts started to kick in. And those instincts were the remainders of the animals we once were. They clouded everything. Destroyed any logic a person might use. Flattened any walls one had build up to  protect oneself. A feeling of helplessness and dread engulfed her, as the realization that she only had about five days left to life sunk in. Five days. That meant 120 hours or 7200 minutes or 432.000 seconds. Not a lot of time. She rolled herself together, tears rolling down her face. _Why did it have to be her. What had she done? She had always tried to be good._ The unique sound of a cat jumping out of a ventilation shaft startled Skye. Loud sat himself on the bed, shouting at Skye. Calling for her to come into the bed to cuddle. Skye couldn't deny Loud that and slowly moved to the bed, curling up next to the cat. Loud really always knew what she needed. Through the open door she could see the kitchen table and the Syringe she had used lying on it. Unused. _At least  I won't have to do that anymore_ she thought before drifting away into sleep.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment on whether you've liked it or what I should change. I have never been good with language so if you find any mistakes please let me know. Constructive criticism is appreciated.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Furry has a word with the avengers,  
> Skye continues her 'everyday' activities,  
> and Trish and Jessica realize what they are up against.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, I'll try to be faster with the next chapters.  
> If there are any plotholes please tell me, I'll try to fix them. It's just sometimes hard to remember who knows what about who.

_The Avengers_

Typical Tony, Natasha thought as she entered the common room at 0800. She could see Furry already sitting in the couch by the window.

"How are you always there before anyone else?"

"Not always. most of the time I just pop in."

"Without triggering _any_ security measures!"

"You do that too. When you are on a job."

"But I've never been able to find out how you managed to show up at the last Shield meeting. The entire Hub was looking for you and you just walked into the room. Without anyone knowing you were at there. Not even Clint or me."

"I have my ways."

"You always have. Will you ever tell me?"

"If you need to know you will. And where's Tony?"

"I'm Coming. Man you are annoying. Why do you always have to do that?"

"What. No good day Mr. Furry from you Mr. Stark?"

" So why are you here?"

"Tony be nice"

"He could be nice too and show up late for once. Or tell me how he managed to get past Jarvis."

"She owed me a favor Stark."

" _She_ owed _you_ a favor. My AI owed you a favor? Of course she did.  
Jarvis nullify any favors you owe anyone."

"The ones I owe you too?"

"No Jarvis everyone's except the ones from me!"

"Ok....Total favors left: zero."

"I said not mine!"

"You didn't have any!"

"Stop being so  ....."

"Friendly??"

"Shut up!"

"shutting up."

Tony flung himself into a chair and starred angrily at the next camera in his field of view.  
A few minutes later Natasha was preparing coffee and Furry was doing something on his telephone when Cap, Clint and Bruce entered the room.

"So now that everyone is here. Let's get this over with." Steve said.

"Ok. Before anyone sais anything I wanted to show you this." Furry sad and projected a table with dates, names and numbers onto a wall.

"What is that?" Bruce asked.

"That is the current 'Capture time' pool  or however it is called." Furry answered.

"The what? And Clint what is your name doing on there?" Tony asked.

"It's a bet in which you guess how long it's going to take us to capture the girl." Clint replied

"And why is your name on there?"

"Hey I'm still part of shield and that's what the agents there do. It's quite interesting what they sometimes come up with. I heard about a team of two who were trying to predict the time based on last encounters. Supposedly one of them wanted to use the behavior of monkey's to analyze the girls moving patterns, not sure why monkeys exactly. And Natasha entered the bet too."

"You did what?" Tony asked turning to Natasha. Meanwhile Steve tried to hide a his laughter behind a fake cough.

"Hey. It's not that bad. And my bet is going to expire today anyways."

"So Furry why did you show us this?" Bruce interrupted them.

"To encourage you to not embarrass yourself further. So now how far are you with the girl?"

"We managed to get her laptop and bag pack." Tony said.

"And what was on the laptop Mr. Stark?"

"Well, her security is quite good, and she has a failsafe that will destroy any data should someone enter the wrong password."

"So you aren't able to crack it?"

"I am. Just not as fast as usually. Right now I'm scanning the hard-drive with a precision 3D magnetic field sensor to create a copy of the data."

"So you've got that handled. Now is there anything else you found out about her, apart from the file Shield has on her."

"What exactly is in that File?"

"Its above your.."

"clearance level I know. But don't give me that shit again. It could help us find her."

"I assure you  Cap, it won't.  So you've got no reason to know."

"I think we have, but there is something more pressing. I guess you already know about the pill the agents of Heart used to end their life, Furry." Bruce interrupted, before the argument got out of hand. " And we've got reason to believe the girl has something similar and needs a certain chemical to keep the it from releasing the poison. If what Natasha heard is true she doesn't have a lot of time left."

"So how can Shield help you? I'd be willing to send some of our best scientists if you need them."

"Well, when you raided  the Heart facility a while back you could have obtained some of the chemicals. If I compare my sample to the ones you took from Heart, you might already have some of it in storage. I wouldn't have to reproduce it so quickly then."

"I'll talk to my scientists and sent some probes over. Now where are you looking for the girl?"

"We haven't been able to pinpoint her. Even her camera shadow is moving randomly. And I haven't yet managed to disable it."

"Ok so you've tried the technical approach. Let's try the behavioral one."

"But we don't know that much about her" Steve protested.

"We know that she thinks she's going to die soon, we know that she didn't like her host families except her last one, we know that she knows that she is being followed and we know that she cares about this other foster kid 'Sara'."           

"So what does that tell us? Furry?"

"It tells us that she likely going to say goodbye to anyone she cares about. Clint. Maybe you should re-visit the psychology courses at the Shield academy, they don't seem to have stuck."

"But that would still only be Sara."

"And her last foster family."

"Who are dead."

"And buried on a cemetery nearby."

"So you are saying that she'll contact Sara and visit the cemetery?" Steve summarized.

"I think that that is highly likely."

"I'll set up an alert. As soon as one of her Cyber shadows comes close to either the cemetery or Sara's house we'll know." Tony said. "Is there anything else Furry?"

"No, but keep me updated. And you all, don't let her slip through. Or you might give the student's at the academy even more visual material of 'what not's' for their lessons." Whit that comment Fury left the room. The others soon followed, going back to their own tasks.

* * *

_Trish_

Mr. Jackson had actually done it. He had proven himself insane. At least from the viewpoint of any sane person. Who would go against the Avengers? In public ? At least she didn't have to worry about getting the media's attention on him. Now she just had to find some dirt on him. however small it was. She started her laptop and continued searching, but now the (social-) media was covered with his stunt in front of the Avengers tower. It was even harder to get anything on him than before. She continued for a few more hours and finally gave up. She still had some other stuff to go through.  Opening the IGH file she spread the documents on the table next to her laptop and started to look through them. There weren't any significant similarities in the 'test-subjects' age, gender, origin, previous medical histories, except that most of them had been in an accident and where orphans. It was frustrating. She couldn't even pinpoint a approximate location of one of their facilities, or a 'recruiting' scheme. It was only after halve an hour, two cups of coffee and still no call that she stumbled over something. In one of their exports of a 'failed' subject Heart was listed as a receiver. She continued to look for Heart in the files and discovered that they brought a good amount of IGH's chemicals. Why did everything have to be connected? She pulled out her phone and called Jessica. Who most likely was still chasing down street thugs. She waited a few minutes, but Jessica didn't answer. _What has she gotten herself into this time?_ Hopefully something that she could easily handle. She walked over to her medicine cabinet and pulled out the disinfectant and some bandages. Whatever happened Jessica  rarely got out without some bruises. Trish set down at the table again and continued to look through the IGH files.

* * *

 

_Jessica_

She wondered why some people felt the need to get themselves killed. And how they managed to ignored any sane reasoning a normal person would have against doing what _she_ was doing right now.

"Jessica Jones. I thought you might show up again. You know I watched the house for _ten_ days and nobody came. So where are your friends now? I haven't seen you with any. And who is going to come after me if I shoot you this time? The police. No they'd be happy to let you die, one more problem solved for them. And who'd suspect me for anything here. With you playing _Hero_ and all. You made enough enemies already. So any last words or lies?" Audrey Eastman said smiling as she looked at Jessica, pointing her gun at Jessica head.

Jessica was Starring at her , frozen in place. How could someone hate her this much, without actually knowing her. And Audrey would probably call for a hero if she ever met a real criminal. But now she had to get out of here. running was out of the question, Audrey wasn't a bad shot and would probably hit her as soon as she tried to move. But if she talked she could probably distract her enough to jump somewhere save. Nobody expects someone to run off in the middle of a sentence.

"Why are you still here Mrs. Parker? I thought I told you to leave this city."

"But you never checked up on me again. Of course my _husband_ was too scared, but I knew you were    just lying. That's what all of you _superhumans_ do. You pretend that you are heroes, when really all you care about is fame."

"Is this still about your mother? Like I told you before _get over it._ What do you think would have happened without us fucking  superhumans in the incident?"

"The military would have handled it, without dropping down buildings like you guys did!"

"They would have dropped the whole god dam _city_. They had a fucking..." And without finishing the sentence Jessica released the tension she had been building up in her legs and threw herself behind the next dumpster. She could hear a shot while flying and crashed into the wall. She seemed to have misjudged her speed because the impact was quit bad. She immediately grabbed the closest thing she could find, a manhole cover and crouched away from the wall, getting ready. She could hear Audrey walking closer. _That women never learns_. When she thought that Audrey had gotten close enough she threw the cover like a frisbee at Audrey, and ran towards her behind it. She managed to grab Audrey's arm and pulled the gun from her hand. She gapped the struggling women and pushed her at the brick wall. _What the hell am I supposed to do with her. She has no real evidence against me, so she won't be put her behind bars,  which meant that I can only let her go if I don't want to cause a felony._ She dumped the women, who had stopped struggling and was now shaking and picked up the gun. She twisted the barrel 180° and walked away, that was when she saw them. Two people coming from the street she had come from and another team that had already taken place in an abandoned house, on the fourth level, and one of them was positioning a sniper rifle.

"Shit. Seems like you've got come whit me. Just my luck" Jessica turned back towards the two man approaching.

"What do you want?  Are you from Heart?" The latter was actually a stupid. They had Heart logos printed on their jackets.

"We ask the questions" The smaller of the two answered.

"Why have you been asking about Silent?" He continued.

"I don't know why that should matter to you."

"Oh it matters. You know we are looking for here too. But if you get in our way will be forced to take actions."

"What do you want with her? What has she done from you?"

"She stole our research. Not that that matters. This is your first warning. If we get word that you continue to ask around  we will not be so nice. And remember you only got this warning, because you had the attention of the media recently. But if you cause more trouble..."

"I'll stop asking" It seemed like the only reasonable thing to do, with a sniper rifle pointed at her.

"And so you remember." The older guy said and raised his hand.

"Wait, what are you going to do. Stop. I said I would stop."

"But we have to be sure you do. We've learned that an example is often required. And we also are keeping an eye on Trish." He lowered his hand and Jessica started running. Before she could reach either of them she heard a shot and saw Audrey sacking together. She couldn't stop and herself and her momentum caused her to crash into the big one. She managed to stay upright and grabbed the shocked small one and threw him into the next wall. She then grabbed the big one and, using him as a shield she ran behind the dumpster. after throwing him into it, a bit harder then probably necessary, she started to move the bin. With it as a movable shield she walked closer to the building block the sniper was in. It didn't take long before she heard him fire his second, and then his third bullet. He seemed to be needing maybe a second to reload. When she got so close that he would be able to shoot her again because of his higher position she threw up a trash bag and, using the distraction, threw herself through a backdoor of the building he was in. She creped through the building. _I would have loved for Luke to be here. He would have taken them out no problem._ She got to the room they had been in without a problem, but they had already left _. Bastards, cowards_.  
Jessica walked back to Audrey, keeping close to the buildings, she had to get to a crowded place soon. She took of her jacket and wound it around the woman's abdomen. With her 'patient' slung over her shoulder she ran towards the main street. When she reached it she screamed for help and left when a few other people had started taking care of Audrey. _I have to warn Trish. I hope they haven't done anything jet._ Luckily she wasn't too far from her sister's apartment, so she made a sprint for it. She pulled out her phone, which off course had been on soundless, still running, and saw that she had missed a call from Trish.

* * *

 

_Skye_

Skye woke up to at 5 o'clock, a time she had become used to in the facility. The sun hadn't jet gotten up. She made herself her last toast slices. She had to get some more food for her next 4 days. One more trip outside. She walked to her computer, and put her breakfast beside the Keyboard. After her encounter with the Black Widow it had become harder for her to stay hidden from Mr. Stark. She had rewritten her code and given her programs a similar structure to Stark's. He seemed to love threads, which was only natural given the amount of computing power he could use. On her laptop her programs had been small, and resource sparring. Now her programs were using a few more threads, with names similar to Starks, sometimes the only difference was a capital instead of a small letter. It had also proved to be useful to have copied her files into Jarvis's root files. She had  also piggybacked a copy paste procedure onto Starks security scans, moving her files around. That at least gave her some freedom.  
After having  hacked Shield and sorted through the data she had found in a file and uploaded onto Stark's cloud she turned to Hydra. She had made some progress on Hydra's firewall. She could almost feel it crumbling. It would only take her a few more tries to gain access to, at least the basic, files. She opened a second window to see where the Avengers were. It calmed her a bit when she didn't have to worry that they were closing in on her. She continued hacking their servers and started a DRDoS attack on some of their communication servers using Stark industries household devices and smart phones.  
Two hours later she finally managed to find the last loophole she needed, a direct communication line between Shield and one of their main servers. She copied as much as she could before Hydra managed to throw her back out. Reading through the files she had gained only confirmed what she had learned in Shield's files. And there seemed to be some important program that was going to be transported by ship in a month or so, why they were shipping a program was a question to her, but she guessed it was for security reasons. She compressed the files she found and decided what to do with what she found. She couldn't give it to anyone, or make it public. As soon as she did all traces of what she found would vanish. And sending it to any of the avengers would either alert them of her position, or make it sound unreasonable. And there was only one person who seemed to be able to do something and who the Avengers kind of trusted. Someone called Furry. Using her "access"  in Shield she pasted the files onto his screen and titled the folder "important". She hoped that he could do something with it. It would have probably gotten her into Trouble sooner or later, but she was quite sure she could manage to stay hidden for four or five more days. She closed her Laptop, grabbed Loud, who had stated to demand attention, and crawled into the ventilation shaft. A few minutes later she reached the ground. She managed to do this faster and faster each time. She had one other thing to do before she was going to buy her food for the last time. It was something emotional and stupid, but she had to say goodbye to the Harveys and Ashley they deserved that. She had failed them and caused there death, but in four days she would join them. Join those she failed and had gotten killed. She just hoped that Trish and Jessica weren't getting themselves too involved or they would probably die to. She had warned them, but nobody listens to a kid. Even less if it's a girl. She knew the Avengers could protect each other, and Furry had seemed like a guy who had played this game for a long time. She hopped onto a bus, paying in cash and seated herself behind some children around her age. She was halve way there when "her" phone rang.

* * *

 

_Trish_

Trish had kind of fallen asleep looking through the files. She had been starring at the same paper for she had no idea how long, but the as soon as she "read" on word it seemed like she had forgotten what she had read before. It was hopeless. She was far too exhausted, and Jessica hadn't jet called. But still she continued to stare at the fricking paper in front of her, when suddenly her phone rang, jolting her out of her dazed state. Jessica. She picked up her phone and didn't even have time say hello before Jessica screamed at her over the phone, clearly in a hurry.

"... Room now. Panic room now hurry! They are coming, Don't open door. Be there soon. Panic room now!"

"Hey stop, what's up. Where are you."

"No time, panic room now. Call the police." Trish could hear the fear in her sisters voice now. There wasn't a lot she knew her to be afraid of, but if she was, she really had to hurry. She picked up a chair, put it against the door, then pushed the files together and put them on top of her laptop, not bothering with the power cable she grabbed everything and ran towards her panic room. She closed the door and heard Jessica panting into the phone.

"Jessica, I'm in the room, where are you?"

"At your building. They don't seem to be here jet, I'll knock four times. Don't open for anyone else."

"Are you hurt?"

"A little bit. Not much." Nice, so translated her sister was probably bleeding to death. But what had her so scared?

"Who is after you, and why are they after me?"

"Because they know I care. That's why. And it's all because of that girl. What has she gotten herself into?"

"Silent?"

"Silent!"

"So what happened, and don't tell me nothing. We were in this together from the start."

"I'm here, keep out of sight from the windows." Jessica replied and Trish heard her knock four times on the front door. She activated the shutters and made for the door.

They were on their way back to the panic room when they heard the first shot, the bullet punched a hole in the normally bulletproof glass, but was stopped from the shutters. Luckily it was nowhere near them, so they hurried on forwards, glass now shuttering behind and in front of them, most of the glass was blocked by the shutters, but there was sometimes some that shot out like a jet when a bullet managed to damage the shutter enough to make a small hole. They were about to pass the last window when a Jessica was caught in one of those the glass jets. It threw here a little bit to the right, and the pain in her already damaged left shoulder flared up. They stumbled into the safe room they could hear the fire alarm going off.  Jessica collapsed shortly after Trish closed and locked the door.

"So what the heck is going on?"

"Well I met Audrey"

"Audrey?"

"The crazy one, who blames superhumans for everything"

"Oh that one."

"Well she still hasn't given up on tacking revenge. I had to hold herself up against a wall, might have hit her a little bit harder then I wanted to but, well. She managed to shoot me, and Heart used her distraction to get the jump on me. They weren't happy about me searching for Silent."

"Why, why would they go through such trouble. It has to coast them quite a bit looking for her."

"They said she stole their research, and as a warning to keep away the shot Audrey and threatened you."

"So why are they here now if they just wanted to warn you?"

"because instincts kicked in and I beat two of the to a pulp when they wanted to shoot Audrey. In the end they managed to escape, but I got Audrey onto the street. I bet she'll even make it without much trouble, just to blame me again."

"So now Heart is after us? Any Idea what to do? I've got enough food to last for maybe a week, but I don't think that even this room will stand against the instruments they might be going to use....Now before we do anything else let me clean up that mess of your shoulder."

"Maybe we should contact Silent, she had to deal with them for  a bit longer, she might know a trick or  two."

"And scream at us for getting involved, she specifically told us not to help her."

"Well I'll call her, you call the police, for whatever they are going to be able do."


	9. Fight(s) over Skye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some fights, Skye meets Captain America, again.

_Skye_

She hated having to listen to people while riding a bus. It was sometimes so hard to make out what they were saying, with all the noise around. Skye pulled out her earphones, plugged them in and started her "standard" communication program, activating the telephone mode. People seemed to forget that calling a person with, as far as she knew SM (selective mutism), on a phone was a bad idea, and could lead to some small communication problems, if said person didn't have the right tools. So she had made herself some.

"Silent. Any tricks regarding Heart assassins?" Not even a greeting. And of course they ignored her warning. No one took her, a child, seriously. And everybody thought to be  able to know better what was dangerous. But if they were captured... no they had no information about her whereabouts. Heart wouldn't be able to find anything out, but still... .

**You got yourself into that mess. I warned you to stay out** _._ That was a bit meaner than she had intended to. But honestly, why did people _always_ have to go where there was a sign that said "Danger".

**Where are you?**

"We wanted to help. But right now we're at Trish's apartment. Locked in her save room. And there are a few too many people with guns out there to take on alone."

**Are there not two of you? I could try something with the Avengers, or maybe this one guy, he had steel skin.**

" _Not_ Luke Cage, we didn't leave on the best of terms," Jessica answered almost immediately, but was interrupted by Trish. "Sis now is _not_ the time to bother about what happened between you two. We accept all help we can get."

**He's probably too far off to reach you in time anyway, I'll try to send some Avengers.**

"How could you just send some Avengers, not even Jessica could do that, and she has managed to stir up some trouble." Trish answered, and Skye could hear Jessica scolding her over the phone for the last comment "It was never that bad, one police station with all the policemen pointing guns at each other, one church riddled with bullet, it all turned out well. _And_ weren't you supposed to call the police?"

"They want evidence, and they are scarred of what has you scarred."

"You're scarred to."

"Ok us scared.  So Silent, any tips for now?"

**Does your room rely on electricity?**

"No, it's self sustaining for a few days"

**Ok, I'll play a little with the power grid, but I can't promise everything. Sorry for the electric devices in your apartment, but I can't control it any better than that.**

"My TV, my espresso machine, my Microwave, how am I supposed to survive?"

"You'll survive sis, or we could change apartments, mine is still not all fixed up."

"Oh no Jessica, thanks, but I think I'll stay here. Maybe Hogarth can bill the insurance company."

"Hey she wouldn't even help me with the insurance. Silent, do whatever you can, but if they are still there in three hours I'll kick their butt no matter what."

**Ok. Stay safe, and don't tell The Avenger's about me. You didn't follow my advice once, now you see where it got you.**

And with that she ended the call. She had to admit, it had been nice "talking" to them. And using a phone made it a lot easier. She could always hang up if they started to scream at her. Ad she trusted them. They were at least friendly. And they were women, women were almost always nicer. They didn't tend to like to hurt you like men did. She looked up at the sign displaying the next stop, she still had a bit left to travel, enough to put down a false trail, or at least pull attention towards Trish's apartment. She pulled out her second laptop, it was annoying that the Black widow had managed to steal her first one, and started her standard setup. She was thankful that she was sitting in the back of a quite empty bus, else she would have attracted way too much attention. And she liked to keep away from crowds, if possible.  
It didn't take her long to hack into facebook and twitter accounts of people close to the building. Having done so one of her program started posting bogus messages on their chat's, saying that they had seen guys in dark clothes entering the building. She also used the fact that some people had actually heard shots . Next she send an email to the Avengers, stating that someone needed their help, with her signature under it. She used one of Hearts communication servers for that, she liked to keep a few "burner" servers. She hadn't jet managed to hack the encryption on the communications, even if she had gained access to it, the server was more like a distributor for their communications, it didn't do any encrypting. And even if she had destroyed it earlier, they would have only open a new one.  This way, by frying the server after having send the mail through it, she made sure that Stark couldn't track her. And with only four days left she didn't have to use her "resources" so sparingly anymore. She checked the busses position, and noted that she only had five stops left. Using Shield servers she infiltrated the energy controls and started modifying the voltage levels of distributor stations close to Trish's home. She had only two stations left when she figured out a good combination, which caused high voltage spikes, followed by low voltage periods. After implementing this in a program, to generate them on a random basis for the next twenty minutes and then delete any traces, she closed her laptop and left the bus just in time. She would still have to walk to the cemetery for a few minutes, but there were quite a few people here, which would make it easier for her to disappear should Heart turn up, but which also meant that getting there, because, like she had said, she hated crowds, would take longer.

* * *

_The Avengers_

Natasha was in the gym with Steve, when she heard Tony order them back. It shortly distracted Steve, which allowed her to take him down, pinning him to the ground. They had been in a kind of stalemate for the last ten minutes, whit Steve blocking her every move, and her escaping and evading every attack from him.

"That's not fair. I was distracted by Tony, maybe he has something, or his proximity alert went off." He complained.

"And that's your problem, in a fight distraction is your worst enemy."

"But didn't that stone distract you a while back and saved you?" He teased her.

"That was an exception. And we should get going, or Tony is going to make this room go wild like last time."

"Oh that time, I almost wondered if wanted to kill us back then."

The two continued to talk on their way up to the meeting room, discussing Tony's various character traits. When they reached the common room the others, except from Clint, were already there, waiting for them. Footage of a building downtown, with a window riddled with bullets, and what looked like people moving behind the closed shutters was projected onto a wall. The lights of the apartment seemed to flash on and off from time to time.

"What is that, isn't that that place of the Radio moderator from Trish Talk?" Natasha asked.

"It is, and we received an from Silent, or someone posing as silent, alarming us of that particular situation." Tony replied.

"So we're going there?" Clint  asked sticking his head out of a vent.

"Nice of you to join us. And no we're not going there, Silent would hardly give us her current position but, because I didn't manage to follow back the path of the e-mail, it _is_ likely it from here."

"So why would she do that?" Bruce asked.

"Maybe because she contacted someone else, and they got themselves into this mess." Clint replied.

"I think we should go there. I'm fairly certain that it was Jessica Jones Silent talked to in that restaurant, along with Trish Walker, but I wasn't quite sure." Natasha said.

"I thought so to, that's why we're not _all_ going to go there. You and Clint should be able to handle anything there, while we wait here, maybe something else.." Tony was about to finish the sentence, when he was interrupted by Jarvis.

" Proximity alert S-GY:.5K"

"Jarvis rude. Don't interrupt people."

"Sorry Mr. Stark, but you stated yourself that this was of utmost importance, and that this alert overrules any courtesy-measures. Should I play the corresponding audio file?"

"No thanks."

"Tony, what means S-GY:.5K" Steve interrupted

"Silent's cyber-shadow is 0.5 kilometers away from the grave yard. Natasha, Clint deal  with this Ms. Walker situation, and bring them in no matter what they say. Bruce, Steve we're going to handle the Silent."

With that said the Avengers separated to get changed. Only two minutes Later Natasha and Clint had gathered in the garage, starting their motorcycles, and the rest was departing in a Quinjet. City traffic was such a pain if you didn't use a motorcycle.

Natasha and Clint managed to get through the traffic fairly quickly. It could have been because some police cars had already been heading towards Trish's apartment, or because they ignored most, Clint still insisted every, traffic law. Probably a combination of both, as they had overtaken the police cars in a nasty traffic jam a while back. Shortly before they arrived the House they stashed the bikes and Clint made his way toward the rooftop of a good sniping position.

"Oh I'd really like another Chitauri invasion, they had those cool and really helpful flying bikes you could use to get up a building, instead of using the stairs." Natasha could hear Clint commenting over the Com.

"Why didn't you use the elevator?"

"Takes longer"

"and?"

"Under construction."

"Don't you train enough? I'm currently running up the first steps and I don't sweat jet."

"I blame your gene-cocktail. Yours and Steve's. It's unfair that I've got to work hard and you just get it handed to you."

"Are you up jet, and finished lamenting? I'm almost there and I'm opening the line to the others."

"Yes yes. Spotted the sniper, he's on the neighboring building." Natasha could hear Clint saying when he reached the top. She waited a few more seconds, when cry from behind the door gave her the signal to attack.

"Clint!" _Why couldn't Clint tell her that the sniper was dealt with._

"It was _the_ shot Tash, through a bullet hole, the trigger guard of a gun and into the men's left leg I couldn't miss that opportunity."

"I see you're having fun over there, just get the targets out of here.  And keep us updated. We're gonna be landing in a few seconds." Tony commented over the com.

"Ok. Don't lose her, Furry is already walking up the walls, I don't want to know what he does if we mess this up. Again"

"You lost her the last time."

"And you couldn't catch her, seems like we're taking turn's, so Steve, Bruce and me still got a shot, COVER" Clint commented and Natasha, threw herself behind the kitchen counter, using the Heart agent she had been about to knock out as a cushion, which seemed to do the job too. A moment later she could make out the typical 'click' of one of Clint's explosive arrows attaching itself to something. It seemed as if time was now moving in slow motion, she could see two of her opponents running, it seemed like flying, towards her. But before they managed to put down a foot they were blasted into the opposite wall. When the fireball disappeared an arrow, with a rope behind it, fixed one of the two Heart Agents onto the wall. Clint followed shortly after. He looked around the room and after spotting Natasha gave her a hand. They were about to make their way towards the save room when one of their opponents went flying past them, another shortly followed, but came to a sudden stop when he hit a wall. A few steps later they met the one responsible. She was leaning a bit on her sister.

"I told you to wait. See what you did to your shoulder?"

"I couldn't let them do all the work!"

"Exactly what I always say! I'm Clint." The Archer interrupted them. Natasha took another look at the woman she suspected to be the vigilante known as Jessica Jones. Her shoulder seemed to have taken some hits, and she was using Mr. Walker to steady her movements.

"Thanks for coming, but if you don't mind me asking, why have you come here? This is certainly not a cases you'd normally take. It was more like a robbery or a hostage situation. The kind handled by the 'Locals'. And please call me Trish." The later introduced herself.

"It's connected to one of 'our' cases, and please don't pretend not to know what, or who, this is about." Natasha replied.

"She told us... Wait now. Did you have to? Jessica I'm taking you up on your offer. we're going to change apartment's" Jessica said, or almost screamed when she got sight of the living room and kitchen. The explosive arrow seemed to have done short work of the interior. Pieces of almost everything seemed to be laying around everywhere. Parts of a chair could be spotted lodged in-between a pair of elevator doors and where there had once been a smooth veneer there was now a crater landscape that rivaled the moon's.

"Come on, I only tried to help. show a bit more thankfulness." Clint tried to defend himself

"Although I have to admit the blast was stronger than expected." He added quietly.

"Clint W´what did you do?" Steve interrupted them over the com.

"Nothing, not much" Clint said playing down the situation a _little_ bit. Natasha just activated one of her small spy cams.

"Lock for yourselves."

There was a short moment of silence, while Starke pulled up the image onto a holoprojector, and Trish and Jessica started to compare the states of their apartments.

"Clint. The bills, you know that the insurance company is going to bill us. Again."

"Sorry" Clint replied a bit too happy.

"And shouldn't you be keeping a watch for the small one?"

 "We are."

"The small one?" Jessica interrupted. "Don't harm her. She's done nothing. You hear me over there I'll come after you personally if something happens..."

"Hola. Stop there. Calm down. We're only trying to help her." Clint cut  in. "And to be able to do that we need to be able to keep her save, and to do _that_ we need to know where she is."

"So the Avengers are taking up the task of protecting a single child?" Trish asked.

"She was experimented on." Natasha replied.

"Which doesn't automatically make her an international threat." Jessica answered.

"Let's just say that we have our reasons. And that because of those it would be bad if she fell into the wrong hands." Clint said.

"So you're worried that she could do something that might threaten you? Well, we won't know whether or not you're lying, so I'll take you on your word that you're only going to help her. Now do you know where she is?" Jessica asked.

"We're guessing that she's going to visit the graves of her former foster parents. The rest of our team is waiting for her. And we are going back to the tower and wait for them there. Too many people will only increase the risks of being spotted."

"So what..?"

"We'll keep you updated about her current actions, but we won't give you all the Information's about her just because you were in the news once." Natasha cut in. Keeping Silent's existence and her skill a secret only got harder the more people they met, who were connected with the girl. And if word got out about her skill there wouldn't only be three agency's chasing her, if you counted Shield, Heart and themselves. The Police didn't really count. This game of hide 'n seek was just out of their league.

"So what do we do now?"

"You'll be accompanying us. Heart is after you. And while you might be able to defend yourselves for some time the shier number of, at least slightly qualified, people Heart has at its disposal is going to wear you down. And you're current living situation doesn't seem to be optimal." Natasha answered.

"But in the long run? We're not going to be able to live with you forever."

"We'll contact Shield to relocate you. But while were still searching for Silent it is easier for us if you are close by. In case she contacts you again." Clint replied. And started to walk towards what was once the door. "Follow me." He added and activated the autopilot of the Quinjet that had remained at the Stark tower. Five minutes later they boarded the plane and sat down, Clint taking the controls.

Trish's heart rate slowly came down, the and adrenalin left her body. Slowly the realization that she was actually flying with some of the Avengers started to hit her. She turned to Jessica.

"You know how jealous my colleges at work will be when I tell them. And it's going to add a whole new dimension to the Radio show. You think Thor's going to be there?"

"I don't know, and why are you freaking out now? You've had plenty of time before."

"I'm just coming of the adrenaline. Sue me. But maybe you could ask Tony Stark for a suit, a real superhero suit."

"I told you. I'm no Hero, and after that last disaster I'm not going to try on another costume, EVER. Maybe you can get yourself one."

"Oh com on. You've got the superpowers. You should do something with them. Maybe you can join them." Trish continued to argue, still high on the new, positive, excitement.

"Oh com on Trish. You're worse than you were on that sugar high you had that one time."

"Don't remind me. But still you would at least be able to help them with Silent."

"Your obviously forgetting one other thing. She doesn't want help. And she has taken your accounts hostage."

"Oh Shit. I'll have to call my bank now. If she finds out the avengers took us in..."

"You'll be left with a broken apartment and no money. But at least you met the Avengers."

"Don't mock me. And how are you staying so calm?" Trish asked, her hormone and neurotransmitter levels slowly returning to normal.

"There was never something so exciting about powers once I had them. So there wasn't much of a reason to be excited about them either."

"But they are heroes. And you could help them."

"I've already killed someone. They don't try to. But I planned to kill him and I did."

"But that was necessary. He was to dangerous."

"Was he more dangerous than Loki?. Loki was able to control people to. And he was an actual alien with other powers to. And they managed t capture him."

"So he needed his scepter to control others. Killgrave only used his voice."

"So I should have gagged him. And I had him in custody once. I'm no hero if I can only keep the world save by killing those who oppose it."

"We all have to do that sometimes. And if you think your bad because of that and don't deserve redemption. Let me tell you, you always do if you at least try." Natasha interrupted them.

"But didn't he deserve it then too?"

"I'm sure that if you tried everything else to stop him and he still wouldn't give up and continued to harm others that you had no choice. You did the right thing."

"I've been telling her that myself for weeks. And I know that he was a real bastard."

"Everybody says that, but then there was this one time.. . But please let's not talk about that anymore. Is there any news about Silent?" Jessica ended the discussion.

* * *

_Steve & co._

Steve, Bruce and Tony scattered around the graveyard after they had watched Natasha's recording of Trish's apartment. Steve put on his cap and started strolling around a bit further from the Harvey's graves, Bruce patrolled the area closer to the grave. He could go anywhere mostly unrecognized, because most people only knew the other guy. Tony had hidden himself in some building. His armor was just to shiny, standing out anywhere. He had cut himself out of the communication loop, but Steve could still make out his voice somewhere  his left. He seemed to be talking to Pepper,  but Steve could only make out some words:

"Could you handle...Insurance.. You know I can't remember the numbers.  Jarvis...Thank you...I know. Don't remind me....Yes we'll get her.... No No.  I'm not going to settle... She's going to need..stable family. No we're not going to....No. You maybe,... I'm no dad...Read the files. Jarvis send Pepper..."

It went on for some time, but a few minutes later Tony turned on his com connection again. Steve couldn't resist asking "Dad?".

"No you didn't hear. Dam you're hearing. It's all Pepper, she's joking about me adopting her, says it would make for a few funny situations, with her having managed to hack me once. So don't you dare make fun of me."

“What’s going on? Who called you Dad?” Bruce interrupted.

“No one. It was a _private_ conversation Steve.”

“Was it about the girl? She could be you're long lost kid.”

“She’s not and it”

“It was about her. Admit it Tony.”

“Thanks Steve. And Tony after all of your party adventures there have to be some children fromyou out there…"

"Oh come on. I'm in a relationship now…. And before I was always quite carful, when being carefree. Also any before that would've already tried to claim heritage to my fortune. There've been enough to do that who weren't even a remote match."

"So she’s not yours Tony? Than what are we going to do with her. Are we just going to hand her over to Shield?"

"So that they can try to finish whatever those crazy's started. We should at least do checkups. "

"Oh come on Bruce Shield isn't that bad. Else I wouldn't be helping them with their machinery."

“Maybe, but she also hacked you once.”

“Almost Steve, almost.”

“It wouldn’t take Shield long to find out.”

“So what are you saying?”

“That Furry is gonna use her to hack you if he finds out. She seemed to be quite good.”

“Maybe, but it was luck, her code was brute, a combination of other people’s work. I fixed every hole. No one is going to hack me again.”

“So we’re just going to hand them a talent like her?”

“We have no other options. They are far better equipped than we are to deal with this kind of stuff.”

“Ok. But I’m going to check up on here. And Tony, was there a Funereal scheduled for today?”

“Yes, there was, Bruce. This is New York. A lot of people die here each day.”

“Yeah Yeah, but they look too formal, all dressed in black, and they are moving so slowly.”

“It is a cemetery Bruce. People don’t generally run towards a grave.”

“But he’s right, there’s something off. They don’t seem to morn, not a single one of them, What’s in the coffin Tony?”

“Nothing It’s just.. Wait there is nothing in there, or no. It’s laced with metal and lead, I can’t scan it. Move in now.”

“NO Tony wait. We can handle them, but if we lose the child now we’re most likely not going to be able to catch her again soon.”

“And what if they kill her?”

“Up till now they’ve always tried to capture here, there’s no reason to assume they won’t try it again this time.”

“Ok Steve, Bruce be careful. Try not to let the green guy out.”

“I am, I am. Tony do the funeral guys emit an kind of signal?”

“Shit they do. There comms. It’s like a signal flare. I’m going to pull up blocker frequency field and adjust it according to their positions. They won’t notice it, but it’s going to disguise their frequency emissions for anyone I haven’t added.“

They waited a few more minutes, watching the “funeral” play out before them. Nothing happened during that time.

“Tony, how close is she?”

“Steve I can’t track her, but one of my Satellites is going to pass over in a sec… Wait, Yes I’ve got visual of the scene.”

“Anything unusual?”

“Nothing much but there’s a schoolboy over there. You see him Bruce?”

“Yes you think It’s her?”

“Maybe, she has  proven to be pretty good at hiding.”

“Should we wait?”

“Yes. Let’s make sure it’s her, Steve pull up behind her. Bruce make sure that Heart, or whoever the other guys are don’t get near her.”

“Yes Tony.” Steve replied. He was a bit nervous. He knew he could handle the Heart guys on his own,  but nobody could guarantee anything for the safety of the girl if she got caught in the crossfire. The fight might be about her in the end, but rational actions weren’t generally made in a fight. He started to walk faster towards her, while trying to keep a slow, unsusceptible, speed.

“Steve they’ve noticed you and her.” Bruce informed him. Now both groups were slowly moving towards the Girl, like a group of panthers and lions competing over a single piece of prey, moving as fast as possible, while not initiating the indivertible fight or startling the prey.

“Tony have you got sight of all of the Heart agents? Are there any others. Are there Snipers?”

“No only us, luckily. But they’ve just tried to send out a call to base. They’ll get reinforcement’s soon. Bruce, You take on the bulk in the park meadow to your left. Steve protect the girl, I’ll secure the coffin. We don’t know what’s in it. Ready when you are” Tony answered.

“I’m ready.” Bruce confirmed.

“Wait till I start running”  Steve said, in the exact moment in which the Girl made an abrupt turn right and ran alongside a chapel into a small patch of forest.

“Or till she does.” Bruce commented, running to cut off the Heart personnel, who had shed their jackets and pulled out a range of weapons, from tranquilizers to automatics. A few doped the coffin and started to open the lid, when they got thrown back by repulsor beams. With that all hell broke loose. Steve concentrated on catching the girl. He had a decent head start against the Heart agents, but the girl was quick and agile, she cut through the trees and ran hooks, which made it harder for him to get close to her, but he _was_ an enhanced human and so it still only took him a few seconds to catch up to her.

“Stop. We only want to help. We can help you get away from Heart.” He called out. He didn’t have a lot of time. He could hear Heart moving up to the trees, searching. The girl  flipped open a switchblade and let it hover over her left wrist she pushed her sleeves back with the sides of it, always keeping an eye on his movements. When she had pushed her jacket back to the middle of her forearm Steve could see a blue dot, clearly standing out from underneath the girls skin. He took a step closer to  her and she started to lower the blade till it left a small indent on her skin, but not enough to draw blood. He quickly stepped back. The girl looked determined and scarred at the same time if that was somehow possible. Her jaw was set, but her eyes changed from wide open to small. The difference only amplified by here Chinese features. She sometimes started to shake a little and he was worried she might cut herself, but she always stopped shortly after, breathing out slowly. He could her The Heart agents coming closer. What the heck were Tony and Bruce doing?

“Tony. What’s going on over there. Can you keep Heart of my back a little longer?”

“I’ve got the coffin. There’s some kind of weapons made out of blue crystals in there, and those crystals are definitively alien. And watch out they might even be able to kill you or the hulk.”

“They can kill the Hulk? What kind of stuff is that?”

“It seems to be some kind of biological weapon. It turns to gas, when broken. They probably used it in those suicide pills that the others took.”

“Ok. But I need backup. I can’t protect the girl, keep her here and fight at the same time.”

“Yeah I’m coming. Jarvis activate AIR.”

“AIR?”

“Automated Intelligent Recovery. I’m coming” Steve heard Tony explain over the com. He focused back on the girl. During his conversation with Tony she had pulled out her phone with her left hand, always keeping the blade close to the blue patch on her skin.

“Just leave me alone. I’d have noticed them If you hadn’t blocked their signal.”

“You might have, but we really only want to help. And we can only do that if we know where you are.”

“I already said that I don’t need your help.”

“But you do. We know you’re dying . We can keep you alive.”

“And where would that be? For how long would I have to run? Just let me spend my life in peace. However long it might be.”

“You wouldn’t have to run. We would protect you.”

“And where would I stay? In your tower. What would I do when you`re on missions. What would I do in my free time? I’d just be a prisoner again. Waiting to be picked, probed, experimented on by the next person or Agency.”

“Shield wouldn’t do that.” He promised her. He believed it. She was too young to be turned into an agent or weapon, and  probably too mentally unstable. He could her Tony taking down some agents, but they were coming to close to his liking.

“ _Shield_ wouldn’t.” At least she agreed with him on that, but why was she so reluctant then? He could see Silent stiffen up before the girl turned around, ready to run. Steve turned his head, just in time to see one of the agents throwing a ninja star with blue stripes at him, he barely managed to avoid the projectile. He needed his shield. His eyes followed the projectile and he could see it heading for the girl.  
“SILENT DROP!” He shouted, ordered her. But she just stopped, her face shortly stiffening, before she relaxed, completely. He could see all the tension draining out of her body. She looked the happiest he had ever seen her. The most at peace. She really wanted to die, she had accepted it, welcomed it. At least partially. Time slowed down for him and he saw the projectile inching closer and closer towards her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally a New Chapter. Sorry for the Wait.  
> Thanks for all the comments. They make posting this worth it.
> 
> I've got one question. Is Skye/Daisy's power to manipulate vibrations limited to matter bigger than molecules, or is she able to control the vibrations of everything? (Electromagnetic fields, Gravity waves...)


	10. Caught

“Catch.” It was Tony of all people who restarted time for Steve. He could see his shield flying, from behind the agents, thrown by his dear colleague. His body automatically grabbed it, he didn’t even have time to think.  
Once his hand closed around the shield he looked back at the girl, a small cut was  on her chin, but the star had done no other damage. It had buried itself in a tree behind her, and somehow only the metal part of the weapon must have touched her. Lucky kid.  
Moving  in front of her he blocked an incoming tranquilizer. But Silent wasn’t frozen forever, and most certainly wouldn’t let herself get caught without a fight (or a race),  and so she had already started to run away from him.  
Sprinting after her Steve pulled the star out of the tree, carful to not touch the blue parts of it and threw it backwards at a stone in front the agents. “Tony watch out.” He added over his com, just to give him a fair warning.  
He blocked a few more projectiles, as well as darts heading for him and the girl. _Shouldn’t those agents be out of ammunition already?_ He was still running when he heard the sound of the ninja star he had thrown connect with stone, breaking and turning into gas.  
Steve couldn’t help but look back. Luckily his aim hadn’t been off and the device had exploded away from the agents, merely creating a wall and not killing them. He was starting to run again when he saw a cat jump out of the trees, onto the back of the agent, who was closest to the cloud, and then quickly retreating. Never touching the cloud.  
The man was of worse, the action of the cat had startled him and in the action of turning around he had lost sight of the cloud and his fingertips brushed the outermost part of it. But for him it didn’t matter whether he was fully engulfed, or had only partially touched it, the transformation still occurred. And Steve saw it happen, and what he saw didn’t look exactly pretty. Of course some modern artist would have called the result of the first stage a masterwork, but really it wasn’t nice. The Agent, previously alive and _normal_   had turned to stone and was now standing in the expanding  blue cloud.  
He looked like a crude statue. As if the carver hadn’t had time to finish the job and only had managed to carve his rough shape. And even before the blue dust cloud had fully settled and vanished he started to crumble to dust, breaking apart from top to bottom.  
Steve turned back towards Silent, who also had stopped at the sound and was now standing stock-stilled at the sight of the agent. Her eyes seemed to be staring straight through him not focused on anything, not even looking at the guy who had died.  
Steve could slowly see her shaking, crumbling, her legs weakening underneath her, when a man stepped out from  behind a tree right next to her. _Shit_ was his first thought, followed by a silent _language_. He should have heard or seen that guy.  
He was getting carless. He started running again, when the girl came out off her daze. But what could one small girl do? Well Silent showed him that one girl could do a lot, at least when combined with a cat.  
As soon as she came out of her daze she turned towards the guy, who was still pulling her closer. She used that momentum and added it to a kick straight into his balls.  
The guy loosened his grip and immediately folded, the standard reaction of a man who had had been hit in the balls, but the girl didn’t stop there and brought her elbow down on his neck, reaching the height by jumping upwards a little bit, adding the momentum of the fall after to her hit.  
Even while doing so she swung her knee upwards into the man’s face. To top it all of a very angry cat dropped from the canopy.  
After that hit the man collapsed, the cat hissing at him, tearing at some of his hair, as well as biting at his fingers. Steve wasn’t sure whether Silent had actually managed to brake his spine or not, but he was quite sure that the man was going to need to recover from the event for some time.  
Steve hurried after the now escaping girl, _why did she always have to run?,_ but was attacked by two Heart soldiers.  
Turning to the one on his left side he kicked the other one, now behind him with a back kick. Shortly after he grabbed the first and twisted the agents arm on his back, disarming him in the process. He kicked the guy towards the next tree.  
Hearing a satisfying thud he continued his chase, now sometimes kicking, but mostly punching agents in their faces whenever they got past Tony or stop fighting against the Hulk.  
He caught up with the girl a few moments later, but, before he could grab her, her foot got caught on a root and she fell. She tried to break her fall with her hands outstretched, but recoiled her left arm as soon as her hand hit the ground.  
This gave Steve enough time to grab her by _both_ of her shoulders. He wouldn’t make the same mistake as the heart agent. He twisted her right arm onto her back. She clearly couldn’t use her left hand.  
After the girl had calmed down and stopped trying to wiggle out, or stomp on his foot he pulled out a pair of handcuffs and restrained her arms behind her back. The girl hissed when he closed the cuff around her left wrist, but he needed to restrain her somehow.  
He also had been careful to place it well below the blue bump in her arm. With Silent now dealt with (at least for the time being) the super soldier was able to focus fully on the fight and the number of active opponents started to dwindle.

“Steve I’ve got the girl. An evac for her would be nice.”

“Sorry, all currently occupied with the Green Guy.”

“How? He’s never needed protection against anything.” Steve asked, knocking out another agent stupid enough to come too close .

 “We’ve never dealt with an alien pathogen before, and I’d like to keep the Green Guy green, not blue.”

“I’ll help him if you watch over the girl. And call SHIELD we’ll need their cleanup crew.”

“I’ll tell Pepper. And stay away from the mist. Calling the other’s now. They’ll be here in 2.3 minutes, along with my suits.”

“Ok. It’s clear here, I’m going to the Hulk with the girl.”

“Covering you. Path is clear.” Tony replied, blasting two more agents.

With that overhead protection Steve crouched down to the girl.

“Silent. Let me help you. You’re not getting out of here alone. Either you’ll let me help you or HEART will take you. Right now we’re your best bet.” He looked at the girl, who nodded. Trusting her to accept his help now Steve opened her cuffs, and surprisingly the girl followed him, without trying anything.  
But there were no expressions on her face, it was blank, blank as if all spirit, all of her being had left her, leaving only the body, a shell, a biological robot.  
Thinking about who had caused her such mental pain for her to enter a vegetative state as such Steve cursed them all, with words he’d never dare to speak out loud. His shield deflected a few more shots, but that was purely out of reflexes, and so after calming down a bit he took in the scene in front of him  when he stepped out of the woods.  
Hulk was standing in the middle of a wide circle of agents with a smaller circle of blue clouds in between. The quinjet was right above it all, its rapid fire forming a cone around the hulk, shooting down any kind of blue ammunition flying towards the big guy.  
And in doing so constantly refreshing the vanishing blue clouds, which the Hulk luckily seemed to try to avoid, never getting within three meters of one. Steve had already plotted the best course to the Hulk for pickup when he heard the annoying sound of trucks coming in.

“It’s not Shield is it.”

“No they’re Heart. Honestly, why do they want here so bad?”

“No Idea. It really is quite extensive. And where are the others?”

“Which others Natasha?”

“No organization does an experiment on a single subject. It’s far easier to find a match in a group than to make a substance fit to an Individual. I know those type of _scientists_.” She practically spit out the last word.

“Normally, but the complex shield raided was build around a single chamber, there were no others.” Clint interjected.

“Are we really sure that she was actually held there or are we just assuming?”  Steve replied.

“No Shield’s having trouble getting through their encryption, but it seems likely. And Tony, has the hard drive yielded anything?”

“No Clint it hasn’t. And it probably never will. I accessed the  low level files, but she’s got an at least ten character password coupled with a 2048 byte encryption key on the important stuff.” Tony answered.

“So you’ve got nothing.”

“We’ve got more here than you have. And where are you?”

“We’re coming in low…” Was Clint’s last comment, before a repulsor blast took out the first two reinforcement trucks. The three left made for a quick exit now faced with the full avengers team, and an army of suits trailing behind the quinjet. Before the last of them had turned Tony’s suits managed to take a picture of its cabin, showing a Heart soldier, as well as a young women in a flower dress.

“Kid get the girl.” Tony instructed one of the suits, the smallest on, while he and his companions continued to decimate the opposing team.

“Why have you got a suit called ‘kid’ ?” Clint asked.

“He’s thinking about adopting.” Steve suggested.

“ _Gramps_ I told you I’m not thinking about adopting. You’re not becoming an uncle so soon.”

“Was  it Pepper?” Natasha asked ignoring Tonys reply.

“Yes.”

“Is she angry you won’t adopt?”

“Steve…”

“Hey could you stop bickering about Tin-cans family status? And do we let them retreat or not?” Clint commented on the group that now, that Skye had been captured, had lost all interest in a fight.

“Its  gold-titanium-vanadium. Anyway let them get away, I planted some trackers. Just make sure Natasha’s got someone to interrogate.”

“And the unconscious ones?”

“Shield cleanup.”

“You ever think  that they’re getting annoyed with us always leaving messes for them?”

“A whole section would lose their job if we did that.”

“Hey Tony! Is your suit supposed to drag me out of the plane?”

“Who? Wait no! Oh no she didn’t. God dammit! Jarvis note: I need a tank for vodka in these suits.”

“Tony what did you do?”

 “Natasha don’t make fun of me. I forgot to lock her suit.”

“You didn’t. Hey are you trying acrobatics now?” Natasha asked a swirling tony, who looked  like his suit was simulating a 3-Axis spinner for astronaut training.

“No Clint I’m not. Jarvis stop...What she’s nicer than me?... I don’t swear… No I don’t you mismatched piece of silicon…. Well it’s true, now stop! Ok now block all manual inputs from kid and get it back to the plane.”

“Hey Tony are you ok?”

“Y-Y-Yes Ste-St-Steve, could y-you take care o-of the gi-girl? I n-need a m-minute for my head to st-stop spinning….  It’s worse than when I’m drunk! Well m-maybe two minutes, or three…. Has someone got a drink?”

With that the crew walked back, well Tony more or less flew/wobbled, back to the two quinjets, stepping around the bodies of either groaning or unconscious Heart agents that littered the field. Luckily the fight had stayed well away from any gravestones. Hulk picked up one agent, who was still making sounds, and slung him over his shoulder. When he reached the jet that had arrived later he dumped the now unconscious soldier in front of Natasha.

“Present” was all he said, before he walked back to the other quinjet, where he sat down on a seat specifically designed for him. The quinjet still tilted quite a bit under the weight. Only when everybody was seated, with Silent still confined in the suit, did Clint and Tony start the engines.

“Hey Tash why does big Green like you and not me?”

“Don’t know, maybe because I can fight without Technology? He is a little adverse to that stuff. Or he just doesn’t like your character.”

“What’s there not to like about me?” Tony answered, earning him a round of half suppressed laughter.

“He Steve, could you stop the girl if she decides to do something stupid again?”

“We’ll up till now she hasn’t done anything majorly stupid, that was all on us.”

“Then just stop her if she does something adverse to us helping keep her save. I’m disengaging the suit now.” Tony said and turned back to the monitor on his arm. A few seconds later the trademark sound of one of the iron-man suits disassembling could be heard accompanying the opening of the small suit, revealing Silent standing , leaning, against the backside. She tried to balance the missing support out by taking a step forward, but her feet were still trapped in the suit which was now slowly being pulled backwards by Silents weight. Steve managed to get one arm behind her back, before she would have crashed, arms windmilling, into the ground.

“Well that was surprisingly unelegant”

“Tony…”

“What Capsicle? It was. Are there blanket’s here somewhere? She’s shivering and it’s not even cold!”

“Well you’re still in your suit! And you don’t know, didn’t you build this plane?”

“I did, but why do you expect me to know something so unimportant.”

“So Tony where’s the closets cable for the main stereo speakers? And Steve the First Aid kid is in the cockpit.”

“Directly behind the wall here Clint.” Tony answered immediately, pointing to a specific spot on the wall.

“You seriously have your priorities wrong.”

“What. No. I Don’t!” Tony replied, earning him another round of laughter.

“Well could you toss me some blankets.” Steve asked,  slowly laying Silent onto the ground.

“Hey Clint, what’s our ETA?”

“About a minute. Shouldn’t take long” Clint answered. Tony meanwhile had managed to find the blankets and threw to Steve, who unpacked them and wrapped them around Silent’s delicate body. When he was finished and moved away Silent’s eyelids dropped and her body relaxed. He made sure she was actually sleeping, before sitting back down on a seat opposite to where she was sleeping, making sure to give her here space. While he had been looking after silent hulk had come a little bit closer  and was now kneeing next to her and running one of his big green fingers across her check.

“small” he noted, before continuing “smashed, hulk smash who smashed” getting a little bit louder and denting one of the seats, luckily Silent seemed to be too exhausted to be woken from that. Hulk calmed down a bit after, his face switching between angry and sad. When he stopped walking he started to turn back into Banner.

“I’ve never felt Hulk so angry, and never like just know. He didn’t even know what was up with her. He was worried” Bruce said when the transformation was finished. “He even kind of asked me what was up with her. And when I told him It was the guys he smashed before he got so angry. It was weird.”

“So that wasn’t on you?”

“No Steve, that wasn’t me”

“Well now that you’re back to yourself could you take a look at her back when we come back, I felt scars there.”

“Scars, how many?”

“I only felt them, I didn’t see..” Steve answered, before being interrupted by Natasha.

“One of the friends we picked up has something she things might help. She got an E-Mail from our little runaway, who was trying to convince her that Mr. Jackson really isn’t a good man.”

“As if you need a proof. Just meeting him is enough.”

“Well they got it regardless. It’s an image, I’m uploading it right now. I have to warn you, it’s not pretty.”

“Thanks Tash.” Bruce replied, he was about to open the image when Clint voiced over the Intercom “Starting our landing. Please hold on to something.” So instead of opening the image file he knelt down next to Silent pulling her into his lap, holding onto her. Steve sat down next him and secured her aswell.

“Tony there’s someone on the platform already!”

“I see it Clint, looks like shield. I don’t see Furry anywhere. Good”

“We’ll if he were here they probably would already be inside.”

“Not funny Spider.  Jarvis, could you zoom in on them.”

“Clint you’re seeing this too are you?”

“Seeing what.”

“There’s a Coulson lookalike standing there Steve.”

“That’s just distasteful. What the heck did Furry do!?”

“I’ve got no Idea. Just wait a second. We’re landing…. Yep that definitively looks like him.”  Okay. Lets greet whoever, whatever is standing there.” Tony said, while slowly guiding the Quinjet down.

"Natasha is our other prisinor still uncounsious"

"Yes. I'll get him after the interductions." Natasha replied. locking into the unconsious mouth once mor to check for any other hidden pills. When she was satisfied she let his head fall back down.

 

 

There was just enough space to fit the three Quinjets on the roof, and without Clint’s piloting skills it would have been impossible. The team got of the planes and made their way, Steve now carrying Silent in his arms over to the group that had obviously already been waiting for them.

“It’s not nice to keep a friend waiting you know. Especially if he made all the effort of getting out of his grave.” Coulson stated.

“Not funny. Really not funny. Who are you. Coulson is dead.” Clint stated with conviction.

“We’ll I am Coulson and I fell very much alive. Well I was dead for some time, but they brought me back after a few minutes. Even without any lasting brain injuries.”

“You could have told us”

“It was need to know Clint. Furry especially didn’t want you all to know. Easier to stay under the radar that way. Don’t need earth mightiest heros to looking over my shoulder.”

“You still should have told us.” Natasha interjected. And then looking at  Melinda.

“You too. I’d have thought we wouldn’t keep secrets like that.”

“Well it was, still is complicated. It really was need to know. And Furry has his reasons.”

“He always has his “

“He really did this time.” Melinda interrupted her, having walked close enough so that only the Black Widow and Captain America could hear it.

“And who are those two over there?” Bruce asked, looking at Fitz and Simmons, who had been in the background, talking simultaneously to each other, their accents overlapping.

“FitzSimmons” They replied in union.

“I’m Fitz” The man said.

“I’m Simmons, Biology” His partner said.

 “Engineering”

“Do you have any Idea how we could create a neurotoxin strong enough to knockout on contact with skin? And how to make it independent of administration area.”

“And concentrated enough to still fit inside a capsule”

“Which breaks on contact”

“But still is  firable from a handgun”

“A reloadable handgun.”

“Slow down. I’m Bruce this Is Tony ..”

“We know, I’ve read your articles on Gammaradiation.”

“Which one. Well I’m sorry, but I’ve got some to look after” He pointed at Silent in Steve’s arm.

“Is that her? I can help. I’m at the top of the class in Med and Anatomy.”

“And I’ve got the samples you requested. There ordered by what we think is most likely what you need.”

“Oh, Ok. Get your stuff. And you Coulson. We need to talk, but later. Tony could you open the doors.” Bruce replied. And with that the group made their way into the tower. Steve glanced a few times at Fitzsimmons _how can they keep up with each other?_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait.I can't promise any reguar updates, but I'll try to be faster with the next one (;. Just finished A-Leves and I'm now in UNI. I'll see how much time I have.
> 
> PS:  
> I fixed that god dam wall of text at the start of the chapter. Sadly I didn't realize it was so bad when I postet this.


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